Bridge to the Stars
by Bird of Poetry
Summary: There is a war across the galaxy for the fate of Dust and the vast constellations of storytelling beings that create it. The Animorphs and Aftran may be pawns, but now they know there's a chessboard. Part 12 of the Dæmorphing series.
1. 1 Muddying the Water

PART ONE

1. MUDDYING THE WATER

I was vacuuming the living room to get rid of the crumbs Ax had left on the floor when he visited last night, when suddenly the diluted sunlight through the blinds was replaced with the dazzle of red and yellow lights directly in my face.

"God fucking damnit," Jax swore, the pass-phrase to the hologram emitter in my leotard shielding my eyes with darkness. "Aaargh," he said. I focused and went into four-eye, sharing his vision, which danced with white spots.

«Take a few steps forward,» came Ax's familiar thought-speech. «Then the lights will not shine in your face.»

Jax and I stepped forward. His vision cleared, and we got the vague impression of being in a very large room. One thing was for sure: we weren't at home anymore. I wanted to ask what was going on, but I wasn't sure if I was in danger, so I kept quiet and tried to observe. Jax and I were at the front edge of a raised platform. There was light behind us, darkness before us. It was like… being on a stage.

Jax turned around. We were on a stage. There were colorfully dressed performers with zebra and ostrich and hyena dæmons. It was like one of those nightmares where you're in a play that you haven't rehearsed for. Except not even in my weirdest nightmare was everyone else on stage completely frozen.

_Some of them are in midair_, Jax marveled. _It's like time's just… stopped. What could have done this?_

«It's OK, Loren,» said Tobias. «You can drop the hologram.» I heard a rush of wings, and felt him land on my shoulder a moment later. I staggered a little with the weight.

If he was perching on my shoulder, openly, then this was a safe place. "End farce," I said.

I was on the stage of what I guessed was a high school auditorium. Ax was with me, stage left. Toby the Hork-Bajir stood like an escapee from a very different sort of musical in the aisle, just clear of all the dæmons seated neatly along the edges. But no one was pointing or screaming, because all the kids in the audience were frozen. Everyone except for Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Rachel. The human Animorphs.

_Thump_. Another figure appeared in front of the stage. A young woman with a Shar Pei dæmon. I recognized her even before Cassie said, "Delia! Aftran!"

"Cassie?" She turned around and looked up at the stage. The hologram of her dæmon sat down, hard. She let her disguise flicker away, until stage light shone on ivory and chrome. "Oh."

«Is he here yet?» Tobias said.

"Who?" I said. I felt shivers rush up and down my arms like lightning.

Ax trained a stalk eye on me. «The Ellimist.»

The shivers turned to heat. "The Ellimist did this?" I hissed.

Marco nodded. "I don't know anyone else who can just stop time whenever he wants. Unless it's that new math teacher."

Toby craned her neck in all directions, casting sharp-edged shadows on the ground with her blades. "Where is it? This Ellimist?" I felt a kinship with Toby, in that moment. Both of our lives had been profoundly affected by the Ellimist, this vast imposing presence we had never met.

"Wherever he wants to be," Marco muttered, and folded his arms as if he could just stand there and wait as long as he liked, though Diamanta's screech owl head swiveled this way and that. I wanted to run screaming from the room, but where would I go? Would the whole world be frozen too?

I saw movement, striking amidst all the stillness. A specter peeled away from the body of a girl, her double in every detail down to the wing patterns of the moth dæmon on her shoulder. She stood in the aisle, further down from the stage than Toby and the others, and said, "Yes, it is I."

I gritted my teeth. I wanted to hate her, but she looked just like a girl with a moth dæmon. Anyway, I was too scared. If I spoke against her, what would she do? Blind me again? Strike me down? Erase my memory?

"Where's the big voice and quick-change bodies and all?" Rachel said. She and Abineng were standing at the back of the auditorium with all the other big dæmons and their children, but she took a step forward as she spoke.

"I have chosen this form for a reason," the Ellimist said in the girl's voice. "I come today on a humble mission. I wanted a humble form. One that would not evoke feelings of dread or awe or reverence from you."

"Bullshit," I snarled. The human Animorphs all turned to stare at me. Even Jax was surprised I'd spoken, much less swore, but the rage boiling through my body couldn't be contained. "You freeze time like this in the middle of, of _The Lion King_," I said, gesturing at the dancers behind me, "and you expect us to believe you're being _humble_? Even if you had to freeze time you could have done it in the woods and teleported us all there. But that wouldn't show off your power quite as well, would it?"

The Ellimist spread her hands out, palms up, and slowly beat the moth dæmon's wings. Her mouth held an infuriatingly calm smile. "Not showing off. Simply helping those of you unacquainted with me to understand what I am. I have come to tell you a story, and to see how you will choose to react."

"Oh, good, a story," Marco said. "Is it a musical, too? Will there be any hakuna matata involved?"

I glared at Marco. Didn't he realize we were in terrible danger? Was joking going to make this any better?

_You just said "bullshit" to the Ellimist's face. I don't think you can criticize,_ Jax pointed out. _Anyway, look at them. The Animorphs. They all have their faces on, like they're ready for anything. They don't want the Ellimist to see they're creeped out._

That was true enough. Dia's big yellow eyes were defiantly fixed on the Ellimist's copied face. Abi just stared into space like he was bored and waiting for the show to start again. Delia had her holographic poker face, of course. The only ones who looked perturbed were Toby, Ax – and me.

"I will tell you a story. You will tell me the ending." The Ellimist looked down at the girl's hands. "Once we had hands. Not much different from these. But that was a long time ago. Almost a billion of your years. We were one of the first species in the galaxy to generate spirit-motes, what humans call Rusakov particles, Hork-Bajir call _hrala_, and the Andalites have no name for, because they scorn the only scientist of their kind to have known it."

«If you were one of the first species to create _hrala_,» said Tobias, «then you were one of the first sentient species. The first storytellers.»

"Yes. Back when all Earth could boast were a few simple single-celled animals, we were beginning to watch the night sky and understand the movements of our own planet. We learned and we grew powerful. By the time worms first crawled in the mud of Earth, we were traveling in faster-than-light ships. And when the first dinosaurs walked we ... we had become much as I am today."

Marco said, "You'd become a girl with braces?"

"The Andalites could do with some of the human sense of humor," the Ellimist said. "And if the Yeerks took some time to appreciate the human sense of humor, perhaps they would view them as something more than meat."

Delia's – no, surely Aftran's – control slipped, and a flush rose to her broad cheekbones.

"We watched other species throughout the galaxy as they began creating spirit-motes, each through their own methods and patterns. We imagined a galaxy filled with spirit-motes, created from a million sentient species, each with its own science, art, and beauty. We imagined these species meeting in harmony, their contact creating blazing new constellations of spirit-motes never before seen."

Toby muttered something in amazement, presumably in her own language, since I couldn't understand. I didn't really understand what the Ellimist was talking about, and resolved to ask Toby later.

"But it wasn't to be that simple. Approximately a hundred million Earth years ago, we became aware of a new force in the galaxy. Not a species, an individual. He was a fugitive from another galaxy, chased out of that galaxy by a power even greater than he. Greater than me."

That chilled me. The Ellimist was already frightening enough. "I thought you were all-powerful," Rachel said.

"No. I seem so only from your limited perspective."

That tracked. The Ellimist was powerful, but if she were all-powerful, she wouldn't have needed to take Elfangor from me to fight the Yeerks. She could have simply defeated the Yeerks with a wave of her hand. Or whatever she had when she wasn't masquerading as a human girl.

"This new force, this individual, began to make his presence known in our galaxy. And he had different ideas from ours. He sees a universe of conflict, pain, and terror. He craves fear. Not his own, of course, but the fear of others. He is a strange perfectionist, in a way."

_A kind of Satan to match the Ellimist's pretense of God,_ Jax noted.

"His goal is to control the fabric of space-time itself," the Ellimist said. "He wishes to recreate the galaxy in his own image, spread his power throughout the galaxies, and someday destroy the one being greater than himself. As such, he is driven to cleanse the galaxy of all spirit-motes, for spirit-motes are themselves conscious, the one fundamental particle of the universe that he cannot directly control."

Again, Toby muttered to herself in her own language. The Ellimist looked at her with raised eyebrows. "You've noticed."

Toby replied in English, surely for our benefit, not the Ellimist's. "The legends of my people say that _hrala_ is the breath of our gods, imbued with their thoughts and their life-force. I always thought it was just superstition, but sometimes _hrala_ does seem to follow where we guide it, not simply flow like water." Suddenly, Toby positioned her neck and arms so that her blades pointed out all around her. "But if this – this entity wishes to destroy _hrala_, that means he must eliminate all storytellers. All sentient life."

"Yes. Though he can't do it entirely, of course, because he is a consciousness himself, and generates his own spirit-motes. But he would eliminate all other consciousness."

I felt very cold, then, though the auditorium was a little warm with so many bodies packed together, unmoving, helpless.

Diamanta became a pencil-thin snake and wrapped herself around Marco's neck like a choker. "Great," he said. "Can we go back to the Lion King now?"

"He is called Crayak," the Ellimist said. Then she looked right at Jake. "You have seen him. And he has seen you."

Merlyse, a wren on his shoulder, fluffed up her feathers as if she were cold. I bit my lip and watched her. What did the Ellimist mean?

"When the Yeerk died in your brain, you peered across the line between life and death; you broke the dimensional hold that blinds humans to things beyond themselves. And in that moment, Crayak saw you. He saw that I had made myself known to you. That I had touched you. And he knew that you must, therefore, play some part in my plans."

Jake went very pale. Merlyse became a ferret and went inside his shirt, only her head showing above the collar. I remembered, distantly, that Tobias had told me Jake had been infested, that they'd had to starve it out. By the looks on the others' faces, none of them had known of what happened in that moment. I feared for Jake terribly. He already was under so much pressure, and now he had this demonic presence, as powerful as the Ellimist – spying on him? Who knew?

"A hundred million years ago, we fought, Crayak and I," the Ellimist said. And suddenly, the auditorium disappeared, and we floated in the vastness of space.

For a wild moment, I imagined this must be what God saw when he looked out on his creation. I could see everything from here, even a brilliant light greater than any star – but it wasn't God. Just the Ellimist. And as powerful as she was, God was even greater. Floating with this impossible view around me, I had a greater appreciation for the scope of his power than ever before.

«I wanted to stop him, to stop his destruction. He wanted to eliminate me. The result was something neither of us could tolerate. The battle we fought destroyed a tenth of the galaxy, millions of suns, millions of planets, a _draiem_ of spirit-motes, a dozen sentient races.»

The human mind can't comprehend the loss of a million suns, but the Ellimist tried to show us. Stars exploded in cataclysms of fire, destroying all their neighbors with them. I didn't know what a _draiem_ was, but I saw an ocean of luminous golden dust among the stars, laced with an unthinkably complex pattern of currents, slowly leak away through tears in the fabric of the universe itself, rips of horrible blank grayness in the black. I heard monstrous beings sing songs I had never before imagined could be music, and smelled poems in a scent-language spoken by flowers with minds, then an emptiness as their dying stars consumed them. I swear I heard that luminous dust scream in agony as it went dark around the worlds once vibrant with stories.

«A dozen sentient species, and more who would have achieved sentience, all destroyed, destroyed for nothing! But Crayak was damaged as well. Destroying so many spirit-motes at once disrupted the very fabric of space-time, twisted by the sudden explosion of our power.»

Then the world shifted and opened to my senses. I could hear the nuclear churning of the stars, all the way down to their hearts. I felt skeins of thread in my grasp and knew that they were timelines, tangled up in dimensions I had no names for. It was an utterly alien feeling, yet there was something strangely familiar about it, though try as I might I couldn't place why.

«All Crayak's knowledge of space-time was now shattered. The few threads he had gathered to him were yanked from his grasp. Millions of years of effort wasted. We fell back, back from our test of wills, our war.»

My senses closed again, and all I knew was the blackness and emptiness of space, sparked with the distant fires of stars.

«We knew then, Crayak and I, that we could never make war again. Not open war, at least. The conflict would have to be carried on by different means. No longer a savage battle. Now it must be a chess game. There would be rules. Limits.»

In an extreme fast-forward that I could somehow still follow, the Ellimist showed me the story of how she had used the false choice of a preserve for endangered humans as a scheme to show the Animorphs how to destroy the Yeerks' Kandrona. I saw, in more detail than Tobias had ever told me, how she manipulated him into leading the Hork-Bajir to the hidden valley in exchange for the ability to morph, but never truly be human, again.

And she showed me Elfangor. How she had taken him from me while I was with the doctor discussing my positive pregnancy test, how he had made his choice to leave me and suffered for it.

Something inside me tore. The Ellimist could have given Tobias his humanity back, but she didn't. The Ellimist could have made sure Tobias had loving foster parents, but she didn't. The Ellimist could have ended the Yeerk invasion with a twist of those threads I'd felt within the universe, but she didn't. There was so much she could have done, but didn't, for fear that her power would destroy the very stars. But in that moment, I would have snuffed out every star in the sky with my bare hands to do what the Ellimist would not. I cried, not caring if the others could see.

«Earth is part of our game, Crayak's and mine. He would have the Yeerks absorb humans and later be absorbed by some more vicious species. But Earth is not the reason I have come to you now.»

The high school auditorium coalesced around me as quickly as it had gone. I was still trembling, my face wet with tears. I gathered Jax in my arms and sat on the edge of the stage. The other Animorphs looked pretty freaked out. Delia/Aftran and Toby were impossible to read. And the Ellimist was once more a girl with braces, grave and serene.

"For millions of years we have played our game," the Ellimist said. "And we have lived within the rules, more or less. But now war threatens again. There is an impasse. A planet I will not let Crayak take. A planet he will not let me save. The people of this planet occupy a unique location in space-time. It is a turning point, and if Crayak can annihilate them, his power will grow, his goal become much closer, his forces become more deadly than ever."

"Including the Yeerks?" Jake said.

"Yes, including the Yeerk Empire," the Ellimist says with an emphasis on _empire_ and a glance at Aftran, "who will benefit from changes I cannot explain."

«So what happens? Irresistible force and immovable object?» Tobias asked. «Who gives? You or him?»

The Ellimist said, "I will finish the story. And you will decide."

"Us?" said Cassie, eyes wide.

I pressed my lips together. I knew what the Ellimist was doing. She was manipulating the Animorphs into volunteering as pawns in her cosmic chess game with Crayak. Show them how _important_ the fight was, then make it seem like the outcome was all in their hands.

"Crayak and I have reached an agreement on a way to decide the issue. To decide the fate of the Iskoort. If Crayak wins, they will be attacked, subjugated, and annihilated by another people."

«By who?» asked Ax.

"The Howlers," the Ellimist said, giving Delia a look that was almost sympathetic. She went unnaturally still. "You have heard of them before?"

"No," said Toby.

"Me neither," I said. But from the tense, coiled look of the human Animorphs' dæmons, they had.

"They destroyed my creators," Delia said quietly. "The Pemalites. It was genocide."

_And left the Chee behind,_ Jax thought. _Robots without purpose. That explains so much._ He pressed his head against my chest with a shiver.

"The Howlers are tools of Crayak's, then? As well as the Yeerks?" said Toby.

The Ellimist nodded.

"Agents of genocide," Toby murmured. "Tell me, then. Are the Andalites his tools as well?"

Jax lifted his head over my shoulder to see Ax standing rigid, his tail poised above his head, main eyes on Toby, stalk eyes on the Ellimist. Jax's eyes widened, and I remembered a confession Elfangor made to me the first time we got drunk together. I hadn't spoken to him the next day, I'd been so disgusted. I was suddenly, forcefully amazed that Toby was so friendly with Ax. I doubt I could have done the same, in her position.

The Ellimist looked very grim, suddenly. "No, Toby. They made that choice on their own."

A taut silence stretched out. Then Jake said, "What does this have to do with us, then?"

"Crayak and I have agreed to decide the issue by a contest of champions. His against mine. He has named the Howlers themselves, a group of eight. I am to pit my eight champions against his."

Cassie crossed her arms. "What is this, a football game?"

"No, that would be eleven guys on the field, not eight," Marco said.

"Eight Howlers against my eight," the Ellimist said. "The winners - the survivors - will determine the outcome."

"I count nine of us," Marco said, eyebrows raised.

"Ten," said Delia/Aftran.

"Oh, fuck me," Cassie said, and all the other Animorphs blinked or leaned back. "You want us to pick eight of us? To save these Iskrats?"

"Iskoort," the Ellimist corrected.

"I'm either honored or ticked off, I don't know which," Marco said.

Dia muttered rebelliously from around his neck, "I know which."

"This must be your choice," the Ellimist said. "Yours alone."

The groan of the vacuum and its vibration in my hands made me leap back in surprise. I was back in my living room. By the angle of the sun through the blinds, no time had passed. I pressed my fingers to my Braille watch and confirmed it.

"Turn off the vacuum," Jax shouted over its wheeze. "We should go to Cassie's place." I turned it off, and he said, "God fucking damn it," this time with real feeling.

And just like that, we were back in statistics class at the community college.

The instructor continued right where she left off. "…Let's look at some of the alternative probability distributions we can fit to the data…"

I pulsed at the metallic "nerve" connected to Chee-bachu's neck, and she gave me permission to use it, as she usually does. I turned her head toward the clock. Twenty minutes left of class.

«Pay attention,» Bachu said. «Non-normal probability distributions are important.»

«What if the Animorphs start their meeting without us? They're bound to go directly to Cassie's barn after this.»

«Since when do you care about Animorphs meetings? Listen, she's talking about gamma distributions. I use those all the time to construct my holograms.»

«Stop trying to distract me. I know you're recording this lecture so I can watch it later. I care about Animorphs meetings when they're making a decision about the future of my people.»

«What do you think you're going to do? The Animorphs would be fools to take up this offer the Ellimist has made them.»

«Perhaps. But you don't know these children like I do. They are idealistic, and they will do anything that might secure the freedom of their people. I think they will say yes. And if they do, I must go with them.»

«_No_,» Bachu hissed. «Listen, you don't know the Howlers like I do. I'm a Chee. I never forget. Let me show you my memories from when the Howlers destroyed my creators.»

The memory was as vivid as the ones I used to replay inside my hosts' minds – indeed, more so, since the Chee have more senses than any organic being. I drank in the sensations in infrared, ultraviolet, electroception, other senses I could not name, to which Bachu did not typically give me access when I shared her body. Then my eagerness faded as each sense gave me a different bleak portrait of horror and destruction.

The CheeNet and radio waves were shrill with cries of despair. I saw the heat trails in the sky as missiles came toward the bunker where Bachu huddled with her clan-collective. Green blood pooled around Bachu's feet as her clan-comrade died from wounds she could have treated if the Howlers hadn't bombed their medical supply lines. Bachu ran the procedure she would have used to save her comrade's life over and over in her mind. She knew she should say something, hold her dying comrade's hand, but nothing in her programming told her what to say to someone who'd been murdered. Pemalites didn't murder. They never could have imagined this would happen.

Bachu looked through the window of the bunker. The missiles were coming. The bunker hadn't been built to withstand weapons, just natural disasters. It would fall, and only she would survive.

«Stop!» I cried. «Please, I can't bear it!»

«Never seen a genocide before?» Bachu said quietly, banishing the memory. «Your Hork-Bajir host must have been born on Earth, then. Now you know. You're not a warrior, Aftran, any more than I was. You can do nothing against the Howlers. They will destroy you.»

Bachu was afraid. Of course she was. I was, too, now that I knew what I faced. But I had learned something from Cassie and Quincy: how to hope. «If Crayak wins this contest, the Yeerk Empire will conquer the humans, and then we will be annihilated in our turn by some other species. What happened to your creators will happen to my people. There might be something I can do to prevent that. Are you going to stop me?»

Bachu was quiet for a while. Then she said, «No. No, it's your choice. I'll drive out there after class.»

I sat impatiently through the rest of class, not really listening. At the end, I scribbled down the assignment; Bachu may have perfect recall, but Delia Nguyen does not, and we had to keep up appearances. Delia Nguyen also has a friend in statistics class, much more Bachu's than mine, but she made our excuses so we could get in the car as quickly as possible.

Bachu has total control during driving, since I don't know how. Driving and meetings with the Chee are the only times when I get no control at all, like a host. It's a humbling feeling to experience that from the other side, even though my hosts' feelings about it have never been a mystery to me. I can't even choose where to look. The invasion isn't as profound as a Yeerk's in a host, because Bachu can't access my thoughts or memories, but the powerlessness is very real. I drew upon the experience to reply to any would-be convert to the Peace Movement who complained to me that the life of an unhosted Yeerk is nearly as bad as that of a host. I had said nearly as much to Cassie, but now I know that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Near the edge of town, when the traffic thinned out, Bachu camouflaged the car in a hologram so we could park it near Cassie's barn without drawing her parents' attention. Nonetheless, when she unmasked from her own hologram in the barn, the Animorphs were expecting us. "Make yourself comfortable, Delia," Cassie said. "We're still waiting on Loren and Toby."

«Tobias must have seen me somehow,» Bachu muttered, settling the Delia hologram back into place. «How does he always do that?» She stood next to Cassie. The rest of the Animorphs gave us looks at various points on the spectrum from curiosity to suspicion.

Loren came in next. "End farce," her dæmon said, and the scars and unfocused look disappeared from her face. That amused me, though I reminded myself that Loren had been married to Beast Elfangor. When I heard the Animorphs mention this before, I didn't understand how it was possible, but now that I'd met the Ellimist, I had to accept it as fact. The Ellimist _would_ use a vile butcher like Elfangor in his schemes.

"Did I miss anything?" Loren said.

"No," said Jake. "Toby's not here yet."

Tobias said, «I know what she'll probably say. "I can't put myself at risk. My people need me." The Ellimist keeps her people safe, but she wouldn't feel like she owes him anything.»

"Well, she'd be right about that," Marco said. Diamanta became a caiman and showed her teeth. "Does Mario thank me for helping him jump over the lava? I might land him straight in the lava next time, and a new one will take his place. Doesn't make any difference to me."

Bachu had to supply me a quick explanation of what Marco was talking about. Karen didn't play video games.

The atmosphere was taut after that comment. Marco was good at making remarks that put everyone more at ease, but he was also good at saying things that reminded everyone just how uneasy they ought to feel. I was grateful when Toby finally flew in.

"Hi, Toby," Jake said. "OK, that's all ten of us, then." Merlyse, a long-eared fennec fox, accepted Jake's hand in the scruff of her neck. "We have one question to answer here, maybe two. First, do we fight for the Ellimist to save the Iskoort? And if we do, which of us should go?"

«I abstain,» Toby said. «I will not go, no matter what you decide. I am my people's advocate in this war. My time and my energy are best spent with them. I can only put myself in heedless danger by choosing to fight for the Ellimist, but my vote should not decide whether anyone else goes.»

"Smart thinking, Toby," said Marco. "This is nuts anyway. The most powerful creature in the galaxy, a guy who could make Earth disappear by just thinking about it, needs us to fight his battles for him?"

Abineng tossed his head and snorted in agreement. "Like we don't have enough to deal with?" Rachel said.

«The only possible reason for doing this is if it helps us in some way,» the Andalite said. «Enlightened self-interest.»

«I think we have that,» Tobias said. «The Ellimist has helped us before.»

Loren's face colored. Jaxom's ears stood up, rigid and trembling. "Are you _listening_ to yourself?" she said through clenched teeth. "_Helped_ you? How can you _say_ that, after what he's done to you? What he's done to our family? The Ellimist has _never_ helped. He just uses us, and sometimes it ends well for us and sometimes it doesn't, but don't ever think that he gives a damn either way."

I looked back forth between Loren and her son. For the first time, I considered the consequences of the marriage between Elfangor and Loren, and how it must have ended. According to Cassie's memories, Tobias had been neglected and mistreated by his guardians. Of course it was an abomination that humans allowed children to suffer this way, but whatever the crimes of humans and Andalites, Loren's and Tobias' lives had been unnecessarily torn apart by the Ellimist's machinations.

"Even if everything the Ellimist says is true," Loren continued, quieter but still red in the face, "who says we're the ones who have to fight? What if we say no? If he's so powerful, why can't he go ask someone else to risk their necks for him?"

«Yes. Why not seven battle-trained Andalite warriors?» the Andalite mused. Internally, I sneered. Typical Andalite arrogance.

"Excuse me?" Marco said. "Like Andalites are badder than we are? What are we, wimps?"

Diamanta became fifteen feet of python and reared over Marco's head to look at Ax. "Yeah, Ax. Let's go. See who kicks whose butt."

"Yeah, that would be the sensible thing to do. You two fight," Cassie said, rolling her eyes.

"Okay then," Marco leered. "Forget me and Ax. You and Rachel, both wearing bikinis."

Abineng lifted his hoof and pressed it down on Diamanta. "What was that you said? I must not have heard correctly."

At the same time, Loren said sharply, "Marco! Didn't your mother teach you to respect women?"

Marco stared at Loren. Diamanta became an ant and crawled out from under Abineng's hoof, then tucked herself in the curl of Marco's hand as a poison-dart frog. Everyone watched him and Loren like something might break. Even I felt a little sorry for him. Visser One is one stone-cold hard-ass bitch.

"She did," Marco admitted, mouth curling up lopsidedly. "I guess all those episodes of _Baywatch_ rotted it right out of my brain."

Loren looked down at her hands and mumbled, "Yeah. Just watch yourself."

Cassie was staring into the distance, her dæmon held in the cradle of her hands. "Could we win?"

That got everyone's attention. She stood up and moved to the center of the group. "Could we win? Could we save an entire sentient species? And maybe help ourselves, too? Maybe weaken the Yeerks – " She glanced at me. "…The Yeerk Empire in some way only the Ellimist understands? Seems to me that's the question. I mean, you know, I'm not Rachel. I hate fighting."

Abineng snorted.

"But the Ellimist put an entire race on the scale. An entire race. Maybe millions, maybe billions. And we're even asking ourselves if we should? How do you not at least try?"

Marco opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "Not just one race. Two. The Ellimist said that if his champions lose, Crayak will send another species to obliterate the Yeerks once Earth is subjugated. That is why I want to fight."

"Oh, the _Yeerks_ are in danger. Boo fucking hoo," Marco said. "What about all your slaves? What happens to them once you Yeerks get the whammy? Maybe they go free. Doesn't sound so bad to me."

"Most Yeerks have no host," I hissed. "They have enslaved no one. You would condemn an entire species for the crimes of a few? Humans have killed and enslaved each other since the beginning of your history. Does that mean all humans should be destroyed?"

"Oh, as if they're not lining up around the Pool to get their own personal meat puppet," Marco sneered.

He was right, of course. Almost every one of those unhosted Yeerks would do anything to get one. But I had to say something in my species' defense. I was about to speak again, not exactly sure what I would say, when Merlyse, Rottweiler-formed, barked to get our attention. "Hold up," she said.

"I think…" Jake said. "I think there may be something else going on here, with the Ellimist choosing us."

Marco narrowed his eyes. "The Ellimist said something about you seeing this Crayak."

"I saw him. When the Yeerk died in my head, I saw him. And he saw me. And since then… since then I've had dreams."

I would have raised my eyebrows if I'd had them. I wondered what it must be like for these Animorphs, being the constant playthings of entities much greater than themselves. At least I had only the Yeerk Empire to contend with – and there was a thought I'd never expected to have.

Jake put his hand on Merlyse's neck and drew her head in front of his chest, a buffer between him and the rest of the barn. "Look, I ... you know, dreams are weird. Like who knows if they're ever real? But these feel real. And in the dreams I see him. Crayak." He shook his head and mumbled to the top of Merlyse's head, "I know this sounds crazy."

"Uh, Jake?" Marco said. "We've been over the line into crazy since Elfangor said, 'Hey, kids, wanna turn into animals?'" Which wasn't exactly the most tactful or sympathetic thing to say, under the circumstances, but Diamanta became a weasel and scurried over to press her head against Merlyse's back leg.

Jake smiled gently. "I just feel like these dreams aren't totally just dreams. I see him. And he sees me. And he says the same thing each time."

Cassie leaned toward him and put a hand on his arm. "What? What does he say?"

"'Soon.' He just says 'soon'."

"Ooookay," Marco said. "I felt that chill go up my spine."

Rachel crossed her arms. "So what does all this tell us? This Crayak already doesn't like us, so we go and fight his handpicked team? Maybe win? Then he loves us? I don't think so. And what about Aftran and Delia and Toby? What do they have to do with all of this?"

«Side bets,» Tobias said. «The Ellimist and Crayak have their main event: Do the Iskoort live or die? But maybe there's some action on the side. Us. Maybe that's why he chose us. Maybe there's another level.»

"What other level?" Rachel scowled. I would have, too, if Bachu's hologram were up. I didn't like being anyone's pawn, and I definitely didn't like being placed in the same category as the Andalite by anyone, much less some uber-being who only refrained from obliterating my species for the sake of a chess game.

«I don't know,» Tobias admitted. «But here's the thing: It's down to Crayak versus Ellimist. Crayak already has it in for Jake, at the very least. Not to mention he backs the Yeerks. Not to mention we know the Howlers are just as bad. The Ellimist wouldn't pick us if he didn't think we had a chance.»

"Do you think the Ellimist thought Elfangor had a chance?" Loren said quietly. "When he sent him back into the war?"

Tobias flinched like he'd been struck. I seethed. So that was how Beast Elfangor returned to the war years after the Taxxon rebellion, to the ruin of Loren's family and thousands of my fellow Yeerks. It made me sick, but it made me more determined than ever to try to undermine his plans, if they worked against the interests of my people.

"Never mind what the Ellimist says," Loren said. Jaxom stood on the hay bale beside her, head lowered to show off his horns. "Look at what he's done. He helped you destroy the Kandrona. He protects the Hork-Bajir. Well, he also ruined my life, Elfangor's, and yours, Tobias. Don't you get it? All he cares about is the big picture, this long game he's playing. He's perfectly willing to destroy individual lives for his agenda. If sending us to die to protect the Iskoort helps him beat Crayak, don't you think he'd do anything to manipulate us into doing just that?"

Loren could be right, of course. There was a risk the Ellimist was using us as cannon fodder. But the opportunity was too important for me to pass up.

Tobias wasn't taking this as calmly as I was, though, as far as I could tell from hawk body language. His feathers were rousted up so he looked almost twice his size. «Maybe so. But the Ellimist gave Elfangor a choice, even if he didn't give you one. And I choose this.»

Then, in a different voice, smooth and feminine: «Sorry, Loren.» His dæmon. Of course. She was easy to forget, since I'd never seen her.

"That's one for, one against," Jake said. I made a throat-clearing noise. "Right. Two for."

"Are you serious?" Marco said. "We're going to take the Yeerk? Why does she get a vote?"

"Side bets," Jake said. "The Ellimist included Aftran in this for a reason. What happens to the Iskoort affects the Yeerks, but he won't tell us why. Who better to find out the connection than a Yeerk?"

"I'm in," Cassie said. "I'll take Aftran in my head if she wants to come." I smiled inside.

«What if she tries to betray us?» the Andalite said, angling his tail blade toward me. As if it would make even a dent on Bachu's body.

I laughed. "Betray you to who? The Howlers? I haven't betrayed you to my closest associates or my murderous overlord, and you're worried I'm going to give you up to a bunch of genocidal maniacs who'd happily carve up my people right alongside yours? Andalites truly are paranoid fools."

"She's right," Jake said to Ax. "The Ellimist said it himself. Crayak is everyone's enemy. And Aftran's been going to the pool for months since she met Cassie, and she hasn't betrayed us yet."

«Very well.» His eyes curved up in that terrible, blade-edged Andalite smile. «If it hurts the Yeerks…» He pointed a stalk-eye at Loren, whose lips pressed into a hard line.

Jake looked at Rachel.

She grinned, and Abineng tossed his mane. "Oh, come on, you have to ask? No Crayak space monster is gonna beat up on my cousin."

Finally, Jake looked at Marco, who was exchanging a searching look with the weasel dæmon at his foot. "What is it?" Jake asked.

"First of all, I'm in," Marco said. "But I just want to point out one thing. Tobias is right. The Ellimist didn't force us, he asked us. Our choice. And maybe he's right that we can do this. But part of the reason we're saying yes is that this Crayak thing has been taking pokes at Jake. And Crayak plays the same long, patient games the Ellimist does."

It wasn't the reason _I _was saying yes, but the boy had a point. I've grudgingly admired him ever since he tried to kill me and Karen in the woods. He was everything I feared about humans, all predatory instinct and stubborn self-interest. If that's kind of twisted, well, what do you expect from someone who asked a human to trap herself as a helpless worm to prove a point?

"So what are you saying?" said Cassie.

"I'm saying maybe Crayak wants us there. Maybe he wants us to say yes. And you know what? That's not because he thinks we'll win."

Great. Now I was good and nervous.

"That makes seven," Rachel said. "The Ellimist said eight champions."

Loren let out a long breath. "I'll go. If Ax and Tobias are going… for their sake, I'll go."

Merlyse whuffed. Jake said, "Thanks, Loren. But I don't think you're the best person to round out this team. You were great last mission, but this is a tough enemy in an unfamiliar place, and you're still really new to this."

"Uh, Jake?" Marco said. "It's not like we have a ton of options here."

"We do have one option." Jake turned to me. "What about you, Delia? Are you in?"

Abineng snorted. "The _Chee_? I thought Aftran wanted to go with _Cassie_. The Chee can't fight. I'd rather have one of the free Hork-Bajir. Do you think one of them would volunteer, Toby?"

"Aftran can't fight either," said Jake, "except with Cassie's body, and Cassie can probably do it just as well or better on her own. But there's more to this than just fighting. We have to know our enemy. And there's only one person here who knows the Howlers. So, Delia. Will you go?"

Jake was right. We needed to know the Howlers before we could decide how to beat them. But Bachu would never agree to go. She was terrified of them.

"Okay," Bachu finally said, in a tiny voice. "Okay. I'm in."

Well. That just goes to show how little I knew about the android I shared a body and a life with.

A huge voice asked, HAVE YOU CHOSEN?

Show-off. He could have used a normal voice and we knew it.

Jake sighed. "Yeah, but could you give us a few days to – "

A pointy, stalk-eyed face shoved itself into mine. «Come to my memory palace! We have the finest memories you can experience on Level Consumer-Nineteen!»

"Howler?" I heard Jake gasp.

NO, ISKOORT, said the Ellimist's voice from nowhere. NO ONE WILL KNOW YOU HAVE GONE. BUT IF YOU DIE…

Then Illim would suddenly find himself in charge of the Yeerk Peace Movement, destiny smile on us all.


	2. 2 Sinks Into You

"As deep as you sink into your host's mind, so deep its mind sinks into you." – excerpt from an oral tradition forbidden by the Council of Thirteen

* * *

><p>"Who invented this place, Dr. Seuss?" Marco demanded.<p>

The city, if you could call it that, was not like Santa Barbara, but a monstrously tall tower constructed unevenly from colored slabs. The slab we were standing on was blue, connected to the overhanging floor above with a huge green pillar. A complex plumbing system, the tanks and pipes also in bright colors, wrapped around the pillar and connected to a mazelike series of low, round buildings going deeper into the tower.

We, however, were right near the edge. Bachu turned her head to get a good look down, and I privately cursed her for it. The ground was miles down, with no railing to shield us from the drop. I hoped Bachu had very good footing.

The Animorphs noticed at about the same time. They all gasped and leapt forward, away from the edge. But the Iskoort were so intent on – what, selling us things? – that they pushed the Animorphs back toward the edge. Rachel was teetering backward, arms windmilling desperately for balance. "Rachel!" her dæmon cried, and seized her arm with his teeth. With his greater weight, he managed to pull her back from the edge, blithely kicking any Iskoort who came too close. Once they were a safe distance in, Rachel leaned back against Abineng, rubbing the bite mark on her arm.

The Iskoort barely noticed. The whole time, they kept yammering at us.

«Come stay at my luxurious palace of leisure!»

«I will buy your ungestated embryos!»

«Find the partner of your dreams at my pool-parlor!»

And to me, or rather, Bachu: «Your metallic casing is dull! Let me polish you!»

"What is this, Planet of the Salesmen?" Marco demanded.

Diamanta became an alligator and snapped her jaws. "Back off!" she said. "All of you, back off!"

"Man, I thought there were a lot of salespeople at Nordstrom's, but this is nuts. I'll take care of this. I know how to get rid of pushy salespeople." Abineng tossed his horned head around to make a path for Rachel through the throng. She stepped out front and said, "We're just here to use the bathroom. Can you tell me where the ladies' room is?"

That shut them up, finally, if only out of sheer confusion.

Cassie exchanged a look with Jake and sighed. "Now what? What do we do? Stand around 'til someone tries to kill us?"

I took a look around. I had no idea what Howlers looked like, but the Iskoort seemed to be a very diverse lot. A bare majority of the salespeople before us were whining accordion windbags with backward-jointed legs and stalk eyes that reminded me uncomfortably of an Andalite's. One looked like a _Vanarx_, but with a long, fluttering dorsal fin and teeth, which made me even more uncomfortable. The rest were less threatening: a few hovering people with huge buzzing wings and bodies sized and shaped like basketballs, and another few sort of like Venus fly traps with legs.

"Can they even understand us?" Marco said. "Unless the Ellimist cast some kind of translation magic on us, I'm pretty sure these guys don't speak English."

"Which ones are the Iskoort?" Rachel said, looking over them. "Are any of them Howlers? How are we supposed to tell?"

"The Ellimist never said the Iskoort were a species," Bachu pointed out quietly. "Maybe everyone here is called an Iskoort, sort of like how anyone can be an American no matter where they came from."

A new assault team was headed toward us, whining and hooting and humming. The leader, one of the stalk-eyed accordion-people, said, «Forgive us, strangers! We did not expect new off-worlders today. Welcome to the City of Beauty! Do you require a guide? Do you wish to sell your memories, or perhaps any unnecessary body parts?»

Merlyse was in coyote form, ears flattened back like she might try to chase them off, but Quincy said to her, "You know, if they're really offering a guide…"

"Yeah, you're right," Jake said. Merlyse relaxed, but still watched the Iskoort warily. "Um, well, we could use a guide. You know, to show us around. Show us where to stay."

«I can partner one of you with my own grub,» the leader said, which answered Marco's question about whether they could understand us, though not how. «Undbel would be happy to guide you in exchange for memories, especially ones of delicious eating experiences.»

The Animorphs exchanged looks, eyebrows raised. Working in exchange for memories seemed perfectly reasonable to me – I value my hosts' memories very highly – but apparently it didn't to them. "Uh, could we pay with something else?" Jake said.

«None of my grubs will work for anything but memories, but my associate,» the Iskoort said, gesturing forward another, smaller accordion-person, «knows the City of Beauty from swamp to sky, and they will work in exchange for his hair.» It pointed a small tentacle at Abineng's black mane.

This time, we all exchanged looks. Anything cut or plucked from a dæmon's body just dissolves into Rusakov particles; Karen tried it with a feather from Cavanagh's wing once.

"What about Rachel's hair?" Marco said, pointing.

"Hey!" Rachel snapped.

«Deal!» the leader Iskoort exclaimed.

Rachel folded her arms. "How much?"

«All of it,» the Iskoort said.

"No way!" Rachel indicated a spot just below her ears. "This much, and that's final."

The Iskoort whined, but unsheathed a sharp-looking razor from a sort of utility belt around its shoulders. «Bend yourself downward so I can remove the hair.»

"Uh uh. I will use your head as a soccer ball before I let you anywhere near my head with that thing." She looked around at the rest of us desperately. "None of you know how to cut hair, by any chance?"

"I do," said Bachu. "In one of my lives I cut the hair of all the village girls for years. Not that short, but…"

"I'll take it," Rachel said. "Do you have some kind of Swiss army knife scissor that comes out of your hand or do you need Mr. Salesman's razor?"

"Um," said Bachu. "Razor, please."

Rachel looked at the Iskoort. "You heard the robot."

It whined and passed over the razor. Bachu held it in a sure and easy grip. "Come here, Rachel. Let me see the back."

Rachel stood in front of us, hands clasped behind her back. Abineng hovered to our right, watching with a gimlet eye. I wondered if they were using four-eye to get a 360º view of the haircut. They _would_.

Bachu took Rachel's silky hair in her fingers, moving it this way and that, and I felt the familiar greed rise up. What would it be like to _have_ hair like this? To feel it brushing against my neck as I walked? What motions of her hands did she use to arrange it in the morning? I wanted to be a part of that experience. But Rachel would never let me.

I felt the weight of Rachel's hair shift in my right hand as Bachu cut with her left, starting just behind her earlobe. She used a slanting cut so the inner layers were longer than the outer ones. It looked very sharp and crisp, except a few ragged strands, which Bachu neatly trimmed away.

Abineng walked a circle around Rachel. "Not bad," he murmured, and that was probably the best Bachu was going to get.

Quincy flew a circle around Rachel, behind Abineng. "It looks good," he said, and Cassie gave Bachu and Rachel a smile. I like Cassie's smiles. They're soft, closed-lipped, and warm.

"This from the girl who buys all her clothes from L.L. Bean," Rachel grumbled.

Bachu handed the Iskoort the hair. It took it and eyed Marco's long hair speculatively. "And you?" it whined. "Your hair is also very fine."

"Dude, we agreed: Rachel's hair for the guide," Marco said.

Diamanta said, "Next time Dad complains about your hair getting too long, I'm telling him it got compliments from an alien."

The Iskoort gave one last ingratiating whine, gestured, and said, "This is my associate, Guide of Ebixuln."

Guide immediately tried to bargain for the last foot and a half of the Andalite's tail, which was the best entertainment I'd gotten all day. The look on his face! He'd clearly rather have traded his sex organs. Marco threatened to sic the Andalite on Guide if it tried anything, and that kept it mostly quiet, for now at least.

"One question, right up front," Jake said. "Have you seen any other off-world strangers?"

«Off-worlders? Of course! The City of Beauty is temporary home to many, many off-worlders.»

«We're looking for members of a species called Howlers,» Tobias said.

"They look somewhat like them," Bachu said, gesturing at the humans. "Same body plan, but black and deep red. They have blue eyes and a very narrow waist that pivots."

"Why are they called Howlers, then?" Rachel demanded. "I thought they'd be like wolves or something."

Guide whined, its mouth gaping open. «This species is not known to me.»

Jake pressed Guide until it admitted there were Howlers about, selling memories. The Iskoort seemed to understand how threatening they were, reticent to share any detail about them. Cassie, frustrated, asked Bachu, "What else can you tell us about Howlers?"

"They're smart," said Bachu. "Very technologically advanced. They use all kinds of weapons. They have this howl that's so loud it completely scrambles your brain. And they have this special souped-up vision that can see infrared, and even major organs inside the body."

"Anyone have a morph that can't hear so well?" Jake said.

"I could morph cobra," Marco said. "They don't have ears."

«I have a rattlesnake morph,» the Andalite added.

"All right," said Jake. "If we see a Howler, we hide and send Ax and Marco after it as snakes. Element of surprise, right? A Howler wouldn't know they're poisonous, or immune to its howl."

"How do we know snake venom works on them?" Cassie said.

«It works on Andalites,» Ax pointed out.

"If you have a better idea…" Jake sighed.

"No. I don't."

"What about you, Delia?"

"It might work on one Howler," Bachu said. "But if they really do have collective memory, even if the Howler dies, the others will know, and that trick won't work again."

"What about your holograms?" Rachel said. "Could you cover Ax and Marco with holograms when they're in snake form?"

Bachu shook her head. "Concealing them so they can more effectively assassinate the Howler? That's a violation of my programming."

Marco snapped his fingers. "Could you disguise us as Iskoort? Like, right now?"

"Sure," Bachu said, "but it wouldn't throw them off for long. They can see infrared. They would notice that your heat signature isn't the same as the Iskoorts'."

"Still," said Jake. "It would at least make us stand out a little less."

"All right," said Bachu. "Make your dæmons small if you can." Merlyse and Diamanta became a magpie and a chameleon. Holograms shimmered into being around us, disguising us as the different species – if that was what they were – of Iskoort. Rachel and Abineng became two Iskoort, on account of Abineng's size. Guide watched jealously, accordion chest whining, and I wondered what body parts it would be willing to offer to get Bachu's holographic tech.

Marco looked down at his tentacles. "Well," he said. "That's freaky."

The Abineng-Iskoort came over to hiss something quietly at him, and he piped down. Abineng must have realized that speaking aloud would quickly give away that we weren't Iskoort. A beat of awkward silence passed, then the Andalite said to Guide, «Prince Merlyse would like me to ask you to take us to where the Howlers went to sell their memories.»

«Yes! Our grand bazaar! Follow me.»

«Great,» I grumbled. «The others are communicating via hologram-covered dæmons. How am I supposed to talk?»

«I'll make a privacy bubble around us if we need it,» Bachu said.

Guide led us downstairs, walking backward in a way that made me uneasy just to watch. I tried not to think about the drop at all. We passed a mostly empty floor full of what Guide noted were energy storage tubes. There was still an exposed plumbing system here, but it was less complex, with long straight tubes and only the occasional tank or spigot.

The next floor down was a different story. It was identifiable as a grand bazaar, as alien as it was. The storefronts were open to accommodate traders of a hundred different body shapes and sizes. The accordion-people were still a majority, but only just. The rest were a bewildering variety. Speech and thought-speak rang out everywhere. I saw an Iskoort no bigger than a human fist negotiating fiercely with another the size of a draft horse. I saw an accordion-person stop at a spigot in the vastly convoluted plumbing system and talk into it for some reason. I saw a pulsing slug-thing reach inside itself and pull out a still-beating organ with a squelch, trading it for a glittering chip like a coin. Eurgh. No wonder the Iskoort kept asking the Animorphs for body parts.

As soon as we reached the mustard-yellow floor, Iskoort teemed around us, brandishing gems and gadgets and dripping pulsing things for us to buy, reaching for our body parts and clothing with acquisitive tentacles and claws and robot pincers. Guide steered us through the grasping herd to a somewhat sparser area where Iskoort with horns and other pointy bits predominated.

«This is the trading zone for the Warmaker Guild,» Guide explained. «They come to the memory palaces here to trade memories for weaponry.»

I looked at a storefront. It had a series of colorful dots on its eaves, and as I looked at them, my mind swam into a strange not-focus, and I was able to _read_ them. They meant something like "Ferocious Battlefield Other-Mind Spectacular." I would never have known the dots were writing if the Ellimist hadn't tampered with our minds. Maybe it was only fair, since the Howlers would probably know how to read the dot-writing, but since when had the Ellimist been fair?

The Andalite said, «Prince Merlyse asks if we can buy Howler memories.»

«I can load them into the robot,» Guide said. Its accordion chest groaned doubtfully. «But they are expensive.»

«I guess we could morph, give some body parts, and demorph?» Tobias said doubtfully.

There was a collective cry of dismay from the Animorphs, quickly suppressed.

«I will pay for you to view the Howler memories. In exchange for harvesting your own memories,» Guide said.

A pause as Merlyse whispered in the Andalite's ear. «What does the memory harvesting process involve?»

«A memory reader will be attached to wherever your brain is kept and used to read the electrical impulses there. You will remain in a mild trance state throughout the process. It is quick and causes no harm.»

«Can't do it,» Tobias said. «Those memories could end up reaching the Yeerks.»

I might have complained that I was in just as much risk of revealing important secrets from my memories to the Andalites. But no one but Cassie would listen if I did, so I kept quiet.

Another pause, then the Andalite said: «Show us a star chart, Guide.»

Guide touched a wall panel, which turned into a screen. It made some gestures toward the screen, which called up a star chart. It wasn't familiar to me, but I'd never had much interest in astronomy. «Expand,» the Andalite said, and the view pulled out. «Expand,» he said again, and now I could see the shape of our galaxy, which the Andalites call the Many-Tailed Witch-Lord. «We are more than five thousand light years from Earth,» he said. «Before the Yeerks could spread a tenth of this distance they would have had to swallow not only Earth, but my planet as well.» A pause. «We will make the trade. Our memories in exchange for all Howler memories, as well as anything else we may need.»

Guide pointed to a slot next to the screen. «Can you interface?»

I felt wiring shift inside Bachu's metal hand. Her finger changed shape. Then a lot of things happened at once.

Bachu put her finger in the slot. Tobias cried, «Howler!» My mental awareness of Bachu disappeared. I wanted to turn my head around to see what was happening, but I didn't dare take over our body without Bachu's permission or even awareness, as far as I knew. «I don't think it's noticed us yet,» Tobias said tersely. «But it matches Delia's description. It's in this, this Warmaker Guild zone.»

«Marco and I will morph snake. Everyone else, retreat, except Delia. Finish transferring the memories.»

It was hard for me to follow what happened. My head was still facing the screen and I didn't dare turn it. Was Bachu done downloading the memories yet? She was the most advanced technology I'd ever encountered or heard of. Surely it couldn't take this long. Or maybe it just felt like a long time.

Bachu pulled her finger from the slot. Slowly, she turned her head around. Still, it felt like this body was empty, carrying out instructions left by a long-gone intelligence. I had lost track of the Animorphs behind their holograms, lost in the shifting crowd. But the Howler stood out clearly, centered in my sight, an oddly-shaped piece of dried lava that still smoldered in its depths. It did not seem to notice the two snakes slithering with surprising speed toward its legs.

Each snake sank its fangs into what on a human would be an ankle. The Howler gave a high-pitched, warbling cry, reached for its left ankle, and wrenched one of the snakes off with a hard pull. It gave a gargling hiss as it left behind a fang, still embedded in the Howler's rough hide. The Howler held the snake by its neck and shook it, fountaining its blood in an arc from where its fang had been torn out.

The Iskoort cleared a space around the Howler and watched with apparent interest, but did not intervene. Recording memories for later sale, no doubt. Bachu still seemed frozen, but I couldn't wait for her any longer. I didn't know where the other Animorphs were, and this one was about to die. Cassie would never forgive me, or herself, if that happened. "Demorph!" I cried. "Both of you, demorph and get OUT!"

The Howler's head snapped toward me. I'd known it would happen. I couldn't use Bachu's holograms to cover my voice; I only had access to motor functions and five basic senses. But it didn't prepare me for the total paralyzing terror of having those blue, empty eyes fixed on me.

The snake the Howler hadn't grabbed used the moment of distraction to pull back and begin demorphing. The snake's scales melted into brown skin. Marco. That meant the snake in the Howler's grasp was the Andalite.

I hesitated. Getting rid of the Andalite could only increase my chances of convincing the Animorphs to support my cause. He would probably kill thousands of my kind if he could, just like his brother. All I had to do to destroy the Andalite was do nothing at all.

A memory surfaced, unwanted, both mine and not mine. Ax was in the fields behind my house. He was usually cautious, but he came so near I knew he was there. He seemed so lonely. I'd never really thought about what it must be like, to be so far from everyone and everything he ever knew. My family wouldn't be much of a substitute, but they knew how to love anyone who needed it. They had to be better than staying alone in the dark. So I invited him to my house.

It was suddenly even more obvious to me why the Iskoort traded in memories. But I would never buy any. I could scarcely handle the ones I already had. Cassie loved the Andalite – Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill – and she loved me. I wasn't sure if all humans had the capacity to embrace so many contradictions, or if Cassie was just special that way. But she did love him, like a brother.

"Do you know what I am, Howler?" I shouted. "Look at me. Tell me. What am I?"

The Howler turned its attention back toward me. It narrowed its eyes. And, masters of timing as the Animorphs were, Tobias used that moment to dive for the Howler's head, talons outstretched. It must have heard the rush of air, because it looked up. Its eyes widened. It dropped the Andalite, shielded its head with one arm, and drew a projectile weapon with the other. It fired the weapon at Tobias.

«Aaaahhhh!» A spray of flechettes peppered Tobias, tearing his left wing to useless shreds. Blood ran over his left eye. He spiraled downward, his other wing fluttering.

«Tobias!» the Andalite cried weakly.

«You can't help him now!» Marco shouted. «Ax, you're bleeding out! Demorph before the Howler – »

"Come on, Howler!" I bellowed. "Look at me! WHAT AM I?"

Then, all at once, the Howler came for me. Its legs loped so fast that by the time I realized what was happening it was nearly on me already. It was then that Bachu finally seemed to wake up. I felt her presence inside. She began to run.

If the Howler was fast, Bachu was unbelievable. Riding along in her body when she began to run was like being strapped to the top of a Bug fighter entering atmosphere. But even with her speed, the Howler had too much of a head start. In a few dizzying seconds I couldn't follow, the Howler had us over its shoulder like a human fireman carrying a burning victim. And with Bachu's programming, we could do nothing to resist.

«Ax, Tobias, morph out! We're on our way, we're gonna – »

«Can't think. Fuzzy. How do I – »

«Oh, _shit_. Guys, come _on, _it has Delia!»

«Are you serious?!»

«Of course I'm fucking serious, am I going to fuck with you at a time like this? Oh, oh no – »

I saw, sideways and upside down, as the Howler fired back at the elephant and tiger coming after us. More flechettes. One hit an artery in the tiger's neck. It buckled as blood sprayed hot and red, speckling the elephant's side. The elephant, too, stopped and screamed in agony at the wounds that appeared on its face. Somehow, none of the flechettes seemed to have hit the Iskoort around us, who watched in a tight circle around the action, hooting and shouting dismay and encouragement both.

The Howler ran on. I lost sight of the Animorphs. «Bachu?» I said, tentatively. «What now?»

«It's a child, Aftran,» Bachu said hollowly. «I have their memories. They're children. They've never lost a battle. They've never left a survivor. And it's just a game to them. They're playing. It's so much _fun_.»

I thought of my moment of empathy with Cassie's love for the Andalite, and felt very bitter and small. Why should any of us have to know our enemies so well? What did they do to deserve our understanding? Knowing them hurt so much more than when they were featureless monsters.

«They have collective memory. They keep track of… high scores. Like in the arcade games human children play. The Pemalites weren't even a high score. Killing them took too long. They started to get bored, by the end.»

«Bachu,» I said. «What are the Howlers going to do with us now? There must be something we can do, if not fight!»

«They only live three years. They self-destruct after that. The Howlers don't care, as long as they get to have some fun before they die. Their lives are so carefree!»

«This isn't helping. Bachu, _think._»

«What can we do? I can't fight. They'll probably disassemble me for parts. They'll find my holographic transmitters and use them to become more deadly than ever. And there's nothing I can do about it. You could leave me, I suppose. But you wouldn't survive, not without a liquid environment.»

_Liquid environment._ I remembered the plumbing system that coiled around every pillar and wall. I realized what it reminded me of – the dæmon-piping system Karen's mother dæmon, a cookie-cutter shark, used to move around their house, except that the piping in Karen's house was transparent. It was as if every Iskoort had an aquatic dæmon they didn't want to get too far away from, except the dæmons were deep-sea creatures who didn't want any light in their pipes. But it didn't matter why the Iskoort had them. The Howler didn't seem to know I was inside Bachu. If we got close enough to one of the spigots, I could crawl out of her head and make my escape.

«Bachu. I need you to focus. Did you notice the plumbing system the Iskoort have set up in this ramshackle nightmare tower of theirs?»

«Um?» she said vaguely. «Yes.»

«Do you see the spigots? Holes where liquid can exit and enter?»

«Yes.»

«I'm going in through one of those as soon as we get close enough. I'm going to swim away, find the Animorphs, and rescue you from the Howlers. But I need your help. As soon as I leave your head, I won't be able to see. I need you to open your head, pull me out, and drop me in one of the spigots, quick as you can. At my signal. Can you do that?»

«Yes. It's non-violent. Simple. But you won't save me, Aftran. This one Howler nearly killed the Animorphs. Maybe it did kill some of them. When they face all eight…»

«They _will_, Bachu. All the more if you can help me. What you told me just now, about them. That they're children. We could use that. Any information helps. So. Are you ready?»

«What if the liquid in this plumbing system is deadly to your kind? It could be, for all you know.»

I paused. I hadn't thought of that. «Either I take this risk, or I sit in your head helplessly while they disassemble _my host_. No, Bachu. I couldn't bear it. You're mine. They can't do that to you.»

«I don't… All right. Yes. We're running alongside a wall now. I'm ready.»

Bachu's head opened. All my senses except touch and smell went dark. I felt cold metal pinch me, then a rush of cool dry air on my skin, making me writhe. I feared I might desiccate to a husk, or feel the bite of the Howler's claws. But then the air went damp and earthy, and warm sludge embraced me.

My first thought was that it felt like home. Better than home, even. The sludge was just the right texture, instead of that constant glue-like viscosity the California pool had. I felt minerals in the fluid in just the right concentrations, not like the ones that were added as supplemental bursts every few hours to our off-world pools, so that every Yeerk got the bare minimum needed to survive another three days. The Visserarchy couldn't spare any more than that, since all the nutrients had to be snuck from the home world through the Andalite embargo, or synthesized at great expense in a lab. But a constant stream of soft-smelling mineral salts flowed past me, making the slime on my skin feel smooth and refreshed.

A sense of calm and contentment eased the edge of my panic. I felt I could think straight again. Already I was contemplating how to find the Animorphs. Why did I feel so _good_? It was almost as if – no. That was impossible. But there it was, shining all around me from the walls of the pipe I had entered. The Kandrona.

I thought briefly of the ridiculous stories Karen was taught in that Sunday school of hers. Had the Howler killed me and sent me to some idyllic Yeerk pool afterlife? Silly as it was, I couldn't help but let out a burst of sonar, just to check.

I saw a group of them down the pipe, with a sense of space around them. It had to be one of the tanks in the plumbing system – a socialization area? But no, Yeerks didn't _mingle_, and they were Yeerks, unmistakably, though very small, with long palps. I swam toward them, unable to stop myself, though I knew it must be an illusion.

As I came closer, I heard them talking, in a mix of sonar and electric pulses, just like I do in the pool. It was not in any language I knew. But just like the dot-writing on the threshold of the memory theater, the meaning-content of their sonar clicks became clear to me, like distant speech suddenly coming closer into focus, though the emotional-intention-content of their electric pulses remained difficult to read.

"Aalyeh introduced me to the most wonderful person the other day. Their name is Salt-Reader, sibling of Story-speaker, if you can believe it. Could they _be_ any more perfect? We talked for _hours_. Well, we decided today to be partners, but they're so worried they won't earn enough this cycle to afford the body mod for it. I am simply des_pond_ent. I can't bear to wait a full cycle to share minds with them, I just _can't_."

A prickling pulse of electricity that might have been exasperation. "You are such a Isk-chaser, Yehyulu. I haven't been with an Isk since I was a grub and I'm perfectly happy that way. You can make it through another cycle. Deep pools, friend, you'll probably be obsessed with someone new by then."

"_Rude_."

"Yeah, seriously. How can you say that after Yehyulu got tossed aside for a drug addiction?"

"Do you _have_ to keep bringing that up? I'm trying to move on!"

"I'm sorry, Yehyulu."

"Me too. That was rude. I can't imagine what that's like, watching from outside as your former partner…" A shudder in the electrical fields.

I paused, far enough away so that the strange not-Yeerks, absorbed in their conversation, weren't likely to notice me. I tuned them out. I needed to _think_. I wish I had a host, even a dæmon, anything that would help me sort out the thoughts swirling in my mind. These Yeerks – if I could be said to share a species with such strange people – were _chatting_. About personal matters. About their personal feelings for their _hosts_. About how they could be happy without a host. Right out loud so anyone could hear them.

"Well, I'm sure you could buy one." Right. They were still talking. "Ho, there! Can I get a skin-seller?"

An electric crackle came from what must be the wall of the tank ahead of me, then, suddenly, thought-speech. «Skin-seller of Tekzhane at your service. How may I help you, honored Yoorts?»

The name format was familiar. Guide of Ebixuln, Skin-seller of Tekzhane. This was one of the accordion-people, thought-speaking respectfully to these… Yoorts. These were Yoorts. Hosts were Isks. _Iskoort_. Controllers!

"Have you any graft-compatible pelts? My friend Zhakdud's Isk has hair falling out all over, but is just too proud and miserly to spring for a new pelt. Zhakdud can feel how uncomfortable and embarrassing it is, but you know how it goes, you can never make an Isk do anything they're dead set against, even if it's for their own good. Anyway, Zhakdud wants to buy a new pelt themself. What's your texture selection like?"

_You can't make an Isk do anything._ Not Controllers, then. Something new, that I never could have imagined until now. What had the Yoorts called them? Partners. I could have basked in the light of that word as if it were Kandrona. But there was no time. My _partner_ needed me. And to help her, I needed to find the Animorphs. Oh, how the Animorphs would love that they were fighting to save a world of Yeerks and their willing partners. Well, Cassie really would.

I was in an agony of snarled thoughts and indecision. The Ellimist. This had to mean something about the Ellimist. But no, I had to _focus_. This plumbing system – no, this _Yoort pool_ – was a vast maze, as much or more as the monstrous Lego tower itself. Which way had I come? Was there a 'net terminal I could consult to find out where the Warmaker Guild zone was?

The Yoort swam up to me and pressed their palps to mine, just like that. As if they spoke that way, touching, intimate, all the time. "Whoa there! How long have you been floating there without us noticing? You're a strapping fellow, stranger! What's your name?"

There were stories of sinkholes, back on the homeworld, that would suck Yeerks down into the muddy bottom. This must be what it felt like to be caught in one, unable to resist its pull. I said, without thinking, "Aftran 942."

"Numbers after your name?" another Yoort said. "How funny! What do they mean?"

"It's my birth order in my spawning," I said, unable to control the waves of wild panic in my electric fields.

"Someone counted the exact order of grubs in your spawning? That seems a little obsessive to me. I hope they recorded it and had an image-parser do the job."

"You feel distressed, my friend," said another Yoort – perhaps it was the one who had called the Skin-seller. "Can we help you?"

"Listen," I said desperately, though giving my trust to another Yeerk, even a friendly alien one, felt as unnatural as dry air on my skin. "My partner's been kidnapped. I have some allies who can help get her back, but I don't know how to find them."

Shock flickered from every direction in the Yoorts' electric impulses. "Someone kidnapped your partner?"

"Oh no, you poor thing!"

"I can't even _imagine_!"

"We're making a call to the Social Regulation and Peacekeeping Guild right now. We can't have people kidnapping Isk left and right; it's a scandal!"

Another wave of panic. The Iskoort couldn't stop the Howlers. They wouldn't stand a chance. Except. Except that when the Howler who kidnapped me and Bachu fired back at the Animorphs over his shoulder, it had been carefully precise. Not a single flechette had hit the Iskoort standing around watching. It wasn't because the Howler cared whether it hit an Iskoort or not. If anything, they enjoyed taking lives; Bachu said it was all just a game to them. So if the Howler avoided hitting any Iskoort, that meant it had to be one of the rules of the game. The rules that the Ellimist had so kindly refrained from telling us, along with the fact that this planet was – no, I couldn't even go there. Once I was pulled down that sinkhole, I would never escape.

"Yes," I said. "Please. Call them. But be sure to warn them. The one who kidnapped my partner is an offworlder. A Howler."

A round of electric gasps. "An offworlder dares to kidnap an Isk? We're going straight to the Warmaker Guild."

"Is there even anything they can do? Aalyeh saw part of a Howler memory. Someone dared them to do it. They lost the dare because they had to quit a minute in, it was so bad. Those Howlers are stone-dry killers. Oh, Aftran. You must be worried frantic for your partner."

"I am," I said quietly. It felt good to admit it. How often did I get to speak my true feelings about my hosts? "Go ahead and call the Warmaker Guild. Even if all they do is delay the Howlers from destroying her, every minute could count. But I also need to find my allies. They were in the Warmaker Guild zone of the trading bazaar when the Howler came for us."

One of the Yoorts touched their palps to a terminal on the tank wall, presumably to call the Warmakers. The others said, "Tell us more about your allies."

"They're offworlders too," I said. Bachu wouldn't be able to cloak them in holograms anymore. They were exposed, I realized. If they were all still alive. It had looked very bad for Tobias and Jake. "Four of them are bipeds with hairy heads, the rest of their bodies covered with skins made from plant and animal fibers. One of the bipeds carries a smaller creature on her shoulder. One is a black quadruped with long horns. One is a flying predator with a sharp beak and claws. One is a quadruped covered in blue hair with stalk eyes and a bladed tail. Two of them change shape."

"I've never seen offworlders that looked like _that_," mused a Yoort who I suspected was Yehyulu, the Isk-chaser. "I wonder what it would be like to change shape. It sounds exciting."

There was no point trying to explain unsettled dæmons right now, though the Yoort was right that it was fun to have one. "And they're with an Iskoort," I added. "Guide of Ebixuln." Another Controller – no, an Isk partnered with a Yoort. I felt a quiet thrill at that.

"Oh, yes, I believe I've bought a memory or two from Ebixuln. I'll give them a buzz." Palps pressed to the terminal in the wall. "Hello? Ebixuln? This is an urgent message, pick up!"

«I have some very important off-world clients to handle right now, Ushmyerg.» Well, that sounded as different from Guide as I sound from Bachu when I talk. «Can't it wait?»

"Tell your very important off-world clients that I have Aftran 942 with me right now!"

A pause. Then, in a very different tone: «We're in Apartment 47-BQ-Up-Green. How soon can you be here?»

"Zhakdud knows the express lanes like the inside of their Isk's skull," Ushmyerg said. "We'll be there in no time."

"You'll escort me there?" I said.

"Of course. No one knows the express lanes on these levels like I do. And anyway, the Warmaker Guild are on the prowl for that kidnapping Howler, but your partner is still in danger. In your place I'd be stripping my own slime off with worry. It's the least we can do."

So many things the Visserarchy and Empire had taken away from my people, that I'd preached to the Peace Movement that we needed, and I'd forgotten this one: kindness. Trust. "Thank you, friends."

"There's a port to the express lane this way," said Zhakdud. "Follow me, as close as you can. It's easy to get separated once we're through, especially the way I turn."

The four of us swam a few pipes and tanks over to a circular hatch in the ceiling. "I hope Aftran the giant can fit," Zhakdud teased. "Now, remember: you want to take the second left. There's a big sonar-reflective circle around it." They touched their palps to the hatch, and in a gurgling roar of fluid, was gone. The other two zipped through, and then it was my turn. I touched my palps to the hatch. There was enormous pressure, and I was sucked through, my sides scraping against the hatch.

"Yaaaaaahhhh!" I crackled pure electric exhilaration. I'd never moved so fast without a host. I could feel ferocious current across my slime layer. I let out a burst of sonar. Right tunnel, in bright outline! Left tunnel! Second left, up ahead! I hurled myself toward the entrance and got sucked in a whole new direction. The others were up ahead of me, pulsing amusement at me.

"Haven't you used the express lanes before, Aftran?" said Ushmyerg. "You must stick to your Isk like dried slime. You should get out more!"

"What's the next turn?" I said. Brightly marked side tunnels were zipping by at alarming speed.

"Straight up in 3… 2…" Zhakdud was pulled suddenly upward as if by a tractor beam. Then Yehyulu, then Ushmyerg, then I swam upward as hard as I could and _whoosh_!

The current here was so strong it distorted Zhakdud's speech. "Back to the slow lanes soon! The next lane won't be as strong, then we'll go through a port. Now, left!"

This one was, blissfully, slower. I'd had more than my share of excitement for one day. We emerged from the port into a crowded pipe; it was all I could do not to lose my guides. At one point, I actually did, but they found me again easily enough; I was half again the size of most Yoorts, and twice as large as some, like Yehyulu. Here, the branching pipes were labeled with sonar-reflective characters, which again, I should not have been able to read. 47-BB-Down-Green. 47-BC-Down-Green. And so on until 47-BQ-Down-Green. Ushmyerg touched their palps to the port. "Ebixuln, it's us!"

The port opened. We swam through into a space like nothing I'd ever known. The walls were blasting sonar – not the clicks of language, but echoes, just like you get in response to your own sonar. The echoes gave me the image of a room with nine figures in it. I listened to the echoes again. No, more than that. A shape distorting a human shoulder, another on a human wrist – their dæmons. The walls of this tank were showing me the whole room using sonar. I could see the Animorphs, after my own fashion, without leaving the comfort of the pool.

I touched my palps to the wall. "Cassie?" I said. The wall doubled my voice into thought-speech.

Cassie came forward. A huge shape that had to be her hand pressed against the tank. "Aftran!" So strange, to hear her voice translated into something like my language. "You got away – through the _plumbing system_?"

"Not exactly," I said. "It's complicated. May I share minds with you? That would be simpler, I think."

"Put your hand by the tap," Guide of Ebixuln said. "Aftran can come out through there."

"Cassie's my… well, not partner, but we do share minds sometimes," I explained to the Yoorts.

"A friendly temp," Yehyulu said. "I know how it is. I prefer a more serious partnership, but…"

"I have to go help my partner," I said. "But I'm grateful for your guidance. More than you can know." I remembered how far this planet was from Earth and felt hollow. "Listen. Once I find my partner, I'll have to go soon after. Far away. But before I go, I want to find you again."

"You know our names," Ushmyerg said. "And we're all registered to the Engineering Guild. Yehyulu to the Shopper Guild as well, though they can hardly afford it."

Yehyulu pulsed exasperation.

"Thank you," I said, and swam toward a spigot much like the one I'd entered through only fifteen minutes ago, though it felt like much longer. I was engulfed in the firm warmth of a cupped hand, and soon into the familiar tightness of an ear canal. As I made contact with Cassie's brain, I opened myself up to her as much as she did to me. It was what a Yoort would do, I felt, and anyway, I needed her to understand me on the levels I could not understand myself.

Fresh memories from her: frantically talking Jake and Rachel through demorphing as they sprayed bright arterial blood from neck and eye, Marco doing the same for Tobias and the Andalite. Guiding them toward an elevator to the apartment as they demorphed, their blood sealing itself away. Everyone's frantic worry at Bachu's kidnapping, Cassie's worry for me. Their fear of the Howlers.

«Oh, Aftran,» Cassie said. «Have you never had a friend before?»

«How can you say that? You're my friend. So is Bachu.»

«It's different with hosts – partners – and you know it.»

She was right, of course. «There's Illim. One of my lieutenants in the Yeerk Peace Movement.»

«But you never tell him anything important, do you? Not outside of Peace Movement business. You don't help each other when you're in trouble.»

«We can't,» I said. «For all I like him, I can't be completely sure he's not a spy of some Visser. He doesn't know my number designation or my host. Nor do I know his. In fact, I suspect his name is not really Illim. If he has any sense, he gave me a false name.»

«I'm sorry, Aftran. And glad for you, too. For the experience you just had.» A feeling of warmth in her face and chest. «If we can beat the Howlers, Aftran… I really feel like we have some hope.»

Yes, of course. That was the name for that dangerous feeling that kept threatening to pull me under when I was with the Yoorts. Wild, unbridled hope.


	3. 3 Unknown Currents

"Swim unknown currents and fear not where the Kandrona does not shine." – Yeerkish blessing over newborns

* * *

><p>"Cassie?" Jake said. Merlyse flitted over as a hummingbird and ran her bill through Quincy's fur. "What happened? Where's Delia?"<p>

I flushed a little at the contact. "Aftran doesn't know. She bailed while the Howler was running away with her."

Marco groaned. "Does she have anything that can help us? That Howler kicked our sorry butts!"

"Yeah," I said.

«What are you going to tell them?» Aftran said. «That I made some helpful new Yeerk friends?»

«Eventually. Just not now. First let's rescue Delia, then we deal with the whole Yoort thing.» Out loud, I said, "Howlers can't attack Iskoort. It's part of the rules. When the Howler was shooting at us, it deliberately avoided hitting any of the bystanders."

"How is that supposed to help?" Rachel asked. "And why can't they? Why would Crayak care?"

"The Ellimist talks about this like it's a giant game between him and Crayak," said Jake. "Every game has rules. We can use that. We can morph Iskoort, or lose them in a big crowd."

«We need to find out where they're keeping Delia,» Tobias said.

"Yeah, and do what? Waltz in to grab her and get puréed?" Marco, of course.

"Morph Iskoort," I said. "They can't do anything to stop us if we're Iskoort."

"They could also follow us to wherever we take her," Jake said.

"Yes, but then we'll have Delia back," Aftran said. "She can project holograms to lose the Howlers."

"We can't be on the defense forever," Rachel said.

"I like our chances better after we see them at their base camp, or wherever they've taken Delia," Jake said. "We need to learn more about how they operate."

"So where have they taken her?" Rachel said. Abineng tossed his head impatiently.

Guide – or more likely, Ebixuln – chose that moment to press their mouth against the spigot of the Yoort pool pipe. I watched, transfixed, as a bulge traveled up Guide's throat, and then a faint splashing sound came from inside the pipe.

«Ew,» said Tobias, fervently. «Guide, what are you doing? Do I want to know?»

I tried to stop Guide, but how could I signal that what they were about to say was dangerous? How could they understand, not knowing my friends' completely understandable fear and loathing of all things Yeerk? Prejudice like that would be unthinkable here. So Guide said, «Ah! Did you not know? I have a Yoort partner. We spend most of our time together, and Ebixuln had not fed in two days, so they had to go into the Yoort pool to absorb Kandrona rays in order to remain refreshed and alert.»

Ax's tail blade was at Guide's throat before I could blink. «Yeerks!» he cried. «They're all Yeerks!» Quincy bared his fangs, but of course there was nothing he could do. Merlyse became a coyote and snarled, and Abineng had his horns lowered like he might charge Guide at any second. I realized that my nails were digging into my palms. _Stop it, Aftran, _I thought, and my hands eased open. _I've got this._

"Wait!" I said. "Guide, how do you feel about Ebixuln? Your partner?"

One of Guide's stalk-eyes pointed at Ax's blade while the other goggled at me. «Feel? About Ebixuln?» Their mouth nervously gasped in air. «We became partners for compatibility, not simply business, if that is what you ask. Ebixuln complements my – listen, can you tell your associate to take his blade away from my – »

TSEEEEWWW! A smoking hole appeared in the door. My body flooded with adrenaline, and my breath came in ragged gasps. "Howlers!" Jake cried. "Morph!"

"They're going to kill us," Marco moaned, clinging to Diamanta's anaconda body.

Coarse brown hair sprouted from Rachel's face, and Ax was facing the door, Guide's throat abandoned in favor of the real threat. "NO!" Jake bellowed. "Not combat morphs! Go small! Flies!"

«What should _I_ do?» Guide said, trembling all over with fear. «I did not agree to grievous peril!»

"They can't hurt you," I said, already beginning the morph to fly. "You're an Iskoort."

TSEEEEEWWW! Another burning hole. My friends were morphing all around me, leaving Guide large and exposed by comparison. «Forgive me if I am not particularly reassured!»

A Howler's face appeared in one of the holes. It looked around, as if to decide whether to shoot us through the hole in the door or simply knock it down and tear us apart. It narrowed its eyes at the sight of us morphing, then lifted its flechette gun and fired it through the door.

I scuttled on my half-formed legs under the Yoort pool system; Quincy had just disappeared, for which I was grateful for once, since I didn't have to worry about him getting hit. Guide's diaphragm let out a scream and they hit the floor, pressing themself flat as flechettes ricocheted everywhere. A flechette hit Marco in the face, and he wailed in agony, but then his face became a fly's and the damage was gone. Faintly, I could hear Aftran's terror. She was not used to these situations, not even when she'd had a Hork-Bajir host.

One of the flechettes grazed Guide's shoulder. They gave a high-pitched squeal as black blood oozed from the wound. I stared in horror.

«I thought you said the Iskoort were immune!» Jake shouted, panicky.

For a moment my brain was frozen, taken up only by the morphing. Then Aftran said, using my thought-speech to broadcast it, «The Iskoort are out of bounds. The Isk are not. Only Isk together with Yoort. Iskoort.»

«Guide!» I screamed. «Get Ebixuln! Now! It's the only way you'll be safe!»

Guide whined piteously, but pushed themself upright and latched their mouth onto the spigot. My fragmented fly-eyes caught the muzzle of the flechette gun at the hole in the door, which promptly lowered at the sight of Guide getting their Yoort back.

«It's not going to fire,» Tobias said, relieved. «It really can't risk hitting Guide. Not anymore.»

So instead the Howlers grabbed the door and pulled it out of its frame. Guide staggered away from the Yoort pool into the Howlers' path as they came in. "Out," the Howlers said.

I could have sworn a kind of manic light came on in Guide's stalk eyes. «Are you certain? The quality of your memories is renowned. I would love to trade.»

«Is he seriously trying to buy the Howlers' memories right now?!» Rachel demanded.

«No,» said Marco, sounding awed. «He's protecting his investment. He only gets our memories if we survive this. He's delaying the Howlers so we can morph and get away.»

The Howlers calmly walked around Guide. One of them was coming for Ax. He didn't have wings yet. He couldn't get away!

Guide threw himself in front of the Howler heading for Ax. «I must insist! I have good credit! I wish to buy your memories.»

"We're not selling," the Howler said in a gravelly voice. The other Howler tried to stomp on another fly, but even Howler speed was no match for a fly's hair-trigger flight. It zipped out the door, and I followed, fiercely hoping that Guide had delayed the Howler long enough to let Ax escape. We owed that Iskoort big.

«Group of Iskoort on our left! Follow them!» Jake said. «Is everyone out?»

He got five shaky replies.

«How are we going to find Guide again?» I said.

«Why should we find Guide again?» Rachel said. «He's a Controller. They're all Controllers. Voluntary Controllers!»

«And what's wrong with that, exactly?» I said heatedly, hovering with the others alongside a busy gaggle of Iskoort. «They're not collaborators, like Jeremy Jason McCole. The Yoorts aren't trying to take over the City of Beauty. They're _part_ of the city, as much as Guide and all those pain-in-the-ass traders are. You haven't seen what Aftran has seen. The Yoorts don't _take_ control, like the Yeerks do. They only have as much control as their hosts allow them to have. It's completely Guide's choice as to whether to take Ebixuln as a partner or not. And clearly Guide _wants _it.» To Aftran, I added privately, «Just like I would be yours, if I could.»

«Why would anyone _want_ to have a slug in one's brain?» Ax sneered.

«Because Aftran knows me better than anyone else could,» I said. «She's seen me from the inside out and she's still my friend. Can't you see how special that is?»

Quincy added, quietly, «Doesn't everyone want to know other people, and be known?»

«Is it so hard to believe that I would see the whole of you and consider you a friend?» Aftran said.

«Aren't there parts of you that you keep hidden because they're ugly?» I said.

Aftran had no answer to that.

«So if the Yeerks ever ran into the Yoorts,» Tobias said, «they would see there's another way. That they don't have to control anyone, and people can choose to be hosts. Because they really want to, not because they're desperate or power-hungry.»

«And are we to believe that the Yoorts truly do not enslave their hosts? Perhaps their control is so total that Guide has been what you humans call 'brainwashed' into accepting a Yoort as his master.»

«Look, Ax, I'm also pretty weirded out by the thought of so many people wanting their own personal slug buddies,» Marco said, «but let's be real here. Does this look like a police state to you? Does it look like anybody here is capable of forcing anyone else to do _anything_? This place is about as fascist as a field full of five year olds trying to play soccer. I mean, we had a full-on blood-and-guts battle in the middle of the marketplace and everyone just lined up to get a good look for their memory banks.»

«So that's the Ellimist's game,» Jake mused. «He wants the Yeerks to figure out they don't need war or conquest. Crayak won't let that happen. Unstoppable force meets immovable object.»

«I don't see how any of this helps us kick these Howlers' butts and get back home,» Rachel said.

«You're right, Rachel,» Jake said. «We need to find Delia, ASAP. Any ideas?»

«Finally,» Aftran snarled, breaking in. «If you're done debating whether the Iskoort deserve to be treated as less than scum, that is.»

«All right, Aftran,» Jake said wearily. «Cassie says you've had a chance to check things out. We need to narrow down the places where the Howlers could have taken her. Any ideas?»

«They'd take her to a place where they can't be watched,» Marco said. «If we had some advance warning about the Howlers from Delia, then they probably got at least some advance warning about us. They'd know we can hack security and surveillance systems. Well, that Ax can, with a bit of my help, but you know what I mean. And the place can't be too far from here, since they managed to gate-crash so fast.»

«The Yoort pools are full of sensors,» I said. «I mean, the plumbing system you've seen all over the place.»

«These holding tanks and pipes are full of _Yoorts_?» Ax cried.

«Yeah. That's how Aftran got to us. She ditched Delia into the Yoort pool system, and got help from some friendly Yoorts to find us. The walls of the Yoort pools have all kinds of sensory equipment. The Yoorts can "look out" on the world outside of the pools using these, um, sonar-images, kind of. Something that they can make sense of, anyway. So anywhere there's a Yoort pool, they could be monitored.»

There was a short, stunned silence. «Okay, then,» Jake said. «A place with no Yoort pools and no other surveillance. Something hidden, and close enough that a couple of Howlers could make it from there to the apartment in…»

«Forty of your minutes,» Ax filled in.

«How can we find that?» Rachel said.

«The Yoorts I met were engineers,» Aftran said. «They would probably know which zones don't have Yoort pools or surveillance. One of them, Zhakdud, knew the Yoort pool system really well.»

«Which means I have to demorph and get you back in the Yoort pool,» I said.

«Yeah,» Aftran said, a little apologetically.

«We need Guide,» Tobias said.

«There was an elevator at the end of this corridor,» Ax suggested. «If we take it, we will quickly be well away from the Howlers. Then Cassie can demorph safely.»

I silently blessed Ax's keen memory. Sure enough, a door swished open in front of us, and when the doors opened on a much more open space, we flew out onto a dark-green Lego floor. I demorphed next to a Yoort pool entrance and let Aftran slither into the spigot. She seemed eager to go back there. I couldn't blame her.

Quincy landed on the pipe, gripping it with his little wing-claws. He startled when a synthesized voice came out of it. "Wow, this interface is really easy to use. Ours are nothing like this."

"Aftran?" Quincy said. "Can you see me?"

"Yeah. Your little bat face looks huge. Okay, I'm about to send messages to Zhakdud and the others. Give me a few."

I spent a few tense minutes waiting, constantly looking over my shoulder for Howlers, Quincy sending out bursts of echolocation to round out the picture. When Aftran finally spoke, Quincy nearly flew away in fright. "I've got floor plans," she said. "They found three places within the nearest five floors. And showed me how to contact them without having to get inside the Yoort pool. Oh, and they found Guide of Ebixuln, who's getting their shoulder wound treated, but they're still on board. We'd probably better wait until we get Delia back before we bother them again. Let me just commit these maps to memory and then we can check out these places."

«Cassie,» Jake said. «Snap your fingers once if everything's okay, twice if there's trouble.»

I snapped my fingers.

«Okay. Good. But let's get going soon. The clock is ticking.»

My stomach clenched. I couldn't stand the thought of those Howlers disassembling Delia, using a pacifist android for parts so they could make even deadlier weapons.

_You've forgotten something important, _Quincy said.

_What?_ I said wearily. The stress of constantly looking out for Howlers was getting to me.

_You told the others that the best way to rescue Delia was to walk into the Howlers' headquarters in Isk morph. But now we know that that's not going to work. To get in there and get back out safely, we need to be Iskoort._

_How did the Howler even know Guide didn't have Ebixuln?_ I wondered.

_They have super-vision, remember? They can see internal organs. You're changing the subject. Only Iskoort can rescue Delia._

_So I'll morph an Isk, and Aftran and I will get her,_ I thought.

_She's made of solid metal, _Quincy pointed out. _And she may be in no state to walk out under her own power. Are you absolutely sure you can find an Isk morph that can carry Delia all by itself, all the way from Howler HQ to a safe zone with lots of Iskoort for cover?_

My heart sank. Quincy was right. There was no way around it. "Hey, Aftran," he said.

"Yes, Quincy?"

"Can you get at least one of your Yoort to come meet us?"

"Why?"

_Careful,_ I said. _They're all around us, as flies. They're not ready to hear this yet._

"Just do it, OK?" Quincy said. "Then come out of there. We need you."

As we flew near the ceiling of the industrial floor of the City of Beauty we'd passed on the way down to the marketplace, Marco nearly crashed into a pillar. «ARE YOU _INSANE_?!» he bellowed.

Merlyse noted distantly, fuzzily, that it wasn't often one of Cassie's plans that got such a reaction from Marco. Mostly, Jake wanted to plead with Cassie: _no, please, you can't ask me to do this._ But this was no time to show weakness.

«You are mad for Yeerks and seek to convince us into your ways,» Ax said coldly.

«You can't be serious, Cassie,» Rachel said numbly. «Please tell me this isn't all you've got.»

«Everyone turn left at the upcoming pillar,» Aftran said, grim resentment clear in every word. She took our reactions personally. But it wasn't about her. She may regret what she did to Karen, but she didn't know what it was like to be in Karen's place.

«Cassie's right,» Tobias said. «We can't risk sending just her and Aftran in. If she can't carry Delia out to safety, we might not get another shot at rescuing her. And if we go in as anything but an Iskoort they'll puree us.»

«Fly over these silos and we'll be there,» Aftran said. «Keep an eye out.»

«Are you sure they can tell if you have a Yeerk in your head?» I said, concentrating on sounding calm.

Cassie said, «The Howler would never have fired that flechette gun into the room if Guide were an Iskoort and immune. The room was so small Guide would have to be hit. It was much more careful when firing at us in the marketplace. Not a single bystander got a scratch. And Delia told us they can see internal organs.» Jake suspected Aftran had contributed some of that.

«I don't see anything Howler-like,» Tobias said, surveying the industrial maze beyond the silos.

«Me neither,» Marco said, sweeping around from another direction.

«Next location, then,» Aftran said briskly. «Two floors up. Follow me.»

«We're going to have to do it,» I said. «There's no time to come up with a different plan, if there even is one that would work. Every moment we waste is another moment they're taking her apart.»

«Oh my God, Jake,» Rachel said. «You're really serious. We're going to be infested by Yoorts.»

«No,» I said. «I wouldn't ask you to do that. I wouldn't do it myself. Half of us are going to morph Yoorts, and half of us will be hosts. The biggest, strongest Isk we can find. I don't know if we can trust the Yoorts, but we can trust each other.»

«Prince Jake,» Ax said, as close to pleading as I had ever heard him. «You cannot ask me to do this thing. It is unendurable. I cannot.»

Of course he couldn't. He was an Andalite. It went against everything he had ever stood for. Host or Yoort, he wouldn't be able to bear it. Never mind that I couldn't bear it either, an alien presence in my mind, feeling things no one else had a right to feel. I was the leader. I had to bear it. «Not you, Ax. You'll be there as a flea. You're the only one who can demorph right away to something dangerous, so you're our backup. If something goes wrong, you'll demorph and hold them off until the rest of us can join in.»

Ax couldn't hold off eight Howlers by himself, of course. But he seemed to welcome it, when becoming a Yoort or an Isk was the alternative. «Yes, Prince Jake.»

The flight up was less nerve-wracking than the stairs, though Merlyse still said, _Look how far _down _those swamps are! _We passed a floor that was, shockingly, walled off from the empty air, though through the clear wall I could see nothing but murky water.

«That floor is a Yoort pool,» Aftran said, a little smugly, and I had to keep Merlyse from snarling at her to shut up, now was _not_ the time. «About a quarter of the levels in the City of Beauty are like that. But we're going the next floor up.»

We followed her to a level that looked like a repair center, or a scrapyard; all kinds of machines were lying gutted, with robots and Iskoort tending to their insides. Aftran led us above all the activity.

«So,» said Rachel, sounding grim. «Who's going to be an Isk and who'll be a Yoort?»

I wasn't sure what to say. How could I make that decision when the options were all terrible?

«Maybe I should be a Yoort,» Tobias said tentatively. «I've morphed Yeerk before. You know, with Loren. And that went, well, about as well as it could have.»

I was grateful to Tobias for speaking up. It freed up my mind, somehow, to consider the question myself. _If Aftran is telling the truth,_ Merlyse suggested, _then a Yoort can't do anything the Isk doesn't want it to. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad._

_But what if Aftran is wrong? What if there's someone else at the wheel? What if we're opening our mind again, like an open book…_

Merlyse said, _And what would that be like? What if, say, Marco was our Yoort? What are you so afraid he'll see?_

I thought of all my burdens I never let them see, the three days as a Controller, the nightmares of Crayak. _If it was Marco? Probably nothing he hasn't already guessed. He knows me._

_Then there's our answer,_ Merlyse said.

«Marco,» I said. «If you'll be my Yoort… I trust you.»

There was a long pause. I got scared, for a moment, that he might try to back out, because I couldn't let him do that. But finally, he said, «Okay, man. But I hope being in your head won't make me start liking Batman better than Spiderman. What if being wrong is like some kind of brain cooties?»

It was a dumb joke, but I laughed anyway. I wasn't sure what else to do.

«That means it's you and me, Tobias,» Rachel said. «You're sure you can do this right?»

«Not really,» Tobias said. «But I'm trying to be optimistic.»

«Okay then. Let's do it.» But the words rang pretty hollow.

«Here,» said Aftran. «This is where they keep spare parts inventory. They might be somewhere around here.»

The spare parts were arranged, if at all, by some system I couldn't understand. Spoked wheels as tall as a horse leaned against oil-streaked engines. There were aisles through the stuff wide enough for any Isk to walk through, but that was as organized as it got. And somewhere among all that junk, my falcon ears picked up voices. Howler voices. «I hear them,» I said, following the sound.

Tobias was heading that way already. «There they are! Not all of them, but… oh, shit.»

«What is it?» I came around a mountain of pipe fittings and saw three Howlers surrounding Delia.

Her head was split open, like she did when Aftran was going in or out of it, and one Howler poked and pried at the delicate parts while another Howler said, "Are you going to tell us where your useful parts are, or not? Because if you don't tell us, sooner or later we'll pull out the part that lets you talk, or see, or walk…"

Then I saw the Howler lying dead in a heap like so much garbage, tracks of dried blood around its mouth and eyes. I shivered inside. We did that. But it wouldn't work again. We nearly died trying the first time.

«That is four Howlers accounted for,» Ax said. «The other four are likely searching for us.»

«What if we bought lasers,» Marco said, «strapped them to our talons, and just – ZAP.»

«They have lasers too,» I said.

«But they're not raptors. And it would be cool. Very Bond villain, don't you think?»

«It's like they don't even care about the one that died,» Cassie said.

«Yeah,» said Tobias. «It's creepy.»

«All right, everyone, focus,» I said. «When we go in to rescue Delia, if she can't walk, we need to carry her out of this junkyard and out to the floor where all the Iskoort mechanics are doing their thing. We should be safe there. Now let's clear out before the Howlers notice us.»

We flew back toward the crowded floor. I watched the Iskoort speculatively. There was a kind the size of a horse, but it had these very fine, jointed arms, like an insect's, which didn't really look sturdy enough to carry Delia, and its back was sloped and kind of slimy, so she'd probably slip right off.

My friends must have been thinking the same thing, because Tobias said, «Check out the pincers on this guy, standing next to the burnt-out steamboat-looking thing. I bet he could grab on to Delia.»

I took a look. They weren't exactly pincers, because they came out of the top of his head, but they were huge and serrated, like a gin trap, and the Iskoort was as tall as Ax and nearly twice as wide, with eight solid, stumpy legs.

«Looks good to me,» Rachel said.

«All right,» I said. «Rachel, Cassie, the three of us demorph and ask this Iskoort if we can acquire him. Everyone else, keep an eye out for Howlers.»

It felt weird to demorph right out in the open, but from what Ax had said, we were so far from home that there was no chance any stories about shapeshifting hairy bipeds were going to make it back to our corner of the galaxy. We did draw an interested crowd, though, including the pincer-head. Merlyse, fox-shaped, hid behind my legs.

Cassie waved to the pincer-head. "Uh, hi," she said. "My name is Cassie of Aftran. Can we talk to you?"

The Iskoort blinked the large eye on his face, a strange sideways motion. His speech sounded like bones grinding together rhythmically inside his head, which was supremely weird to be able to understand. "Assistant Airship Mechanic of Axahantl. Your shapeshifting is remarkable. May I help you?"

"Yeah, about the shapeshifting," Cassie said, rubbing the back of her neck. "We, uh…"

«Tell him you think his shape is really cool and you want to borrow it,» Marco said.

"Admire your pincers very much," Cassie continued, without too much of a pause, "and we were hoping to add your shape to our, um, shapeshifting repertoire. We just want to use it once. Would that be okay?"

"You want to shape shift into me?" Another sideways blink. "That sounds amazing. Can I watch?"

We exchanged looks. "I don't see why not," I said.

"Is there anything I have to do?" the Iskoort – his name was too long, I was just going to call him Mechanic – said.

"We have to touch you," Rachel said. "If you don't mind."

"All five of you?"

I was confused for a second, until I realized he must think of Merlyse and Abineng as separate people – Quincy had probably been too small for him to notice. "No," said Cassie. "Just the three of us bipeds."

"Very well." Mechanic let us gather around and touch his shiny red carapace. I noticed he had eyes on the back of his head too, on either side of the pincers. It took me a minute to focus on Mechanic in my mind, because he was so alien. I thought about having eyes in the back of my head, and two long whip-like tails, and the solid tough presence that was Mechanic.

"Thank you, Assistant Ship Mechanic," Cassie said. "Now, if you want to watch us morph into you, you'll have to wait a little – we need to talk to some Yoort friends of ours."

"I'll come with you," Mechanic said.

We walked to a Yoort pool pipe around a pillar, and Cassie, or more probably Aftran, talked into a spigot like it was a telephone. "Can I be connected to Zhakdud of the Engineering Guild? Tell them it's Cassie of Aftran. Thank you."

I stood there, feeling kind of embarrassed on Cassie's behalf that she was talking to a pipe. But then a thought-speak voice came from the pipe. «It's good to hear from you, Aftran. And nice to meet you, Cassie. Can I help you?»

"Yeah," she said, and this time it was clearly Cassie, not Aftran. "I'd appreciate that. See, um, this is when we need you to come meet us. It's the second place you told us about. This is…" She looked at the rim of the spigot. "Exit 49-Yellow-892."

«Do you need us to be your partners?» the voice said.

"Um, no," Cassie said. "It's a little hard to explain, but basically, we can turn into any animal whose DNA we acquire. And two of us need to turn into Yoorts. If that's fine with you."

A pause, then: «I'll come. And I'll ask Ushmyerg and Yehyulu if they'll help too. I think this will be interesting.»

"Ew," Diamanta said, dropping the Yoort back into the spigot. She rubbed her little monkey fingers together. "It got slime on me." She turned into a frog and hopped into Marco's hand.

"So," said Marco, flexing his fingers around Dia. "Um. How does this work? How do I _not_ take over Jake's brain? Because one brain is more than enough for me."

«Taking over a brain?» said Ushmyerg, the Yoort Marco acquired. «Ugh! That's barbaric! What do you think I am, some pre-Contact swamp-Yoort?»

We all exchanged looks. I wanted to ask, but there wasn't time. "It's easy," Mechanic said, very slowly, like we were slow kindergartners. "You feel this gentle sort of pressure when the Yoort is trying to access a part of your mind, and if you want to give them access, you just… stop pushing back. You can push back a little if you only want to show part of it, and you don't push back at all if you want complete sharing." He shook his head, making the layers of bristles on his underside rustle against each other. "You're fresh from off-world, aren't you? I hope we get more of you. I would pay good credit to see a shapeshifting show."

I hoped it was as easy as all that. I rubbed my thumb back and forth on Merl's goat horns. "All right," I said, swallowing a little louder than I meant to. "Are we ready?"

«"No,"» Marco,Tobias, and Rachel said at the same time.

Cassie looked around at the rest of us. "I'm sorry. I would never ask you to do this if the situation weren't so bad. I wish I could have thought of a better way."

Rachel leaned back against Abineng like she was tired. Maybe she was. It felt like I'd last slept about a year ago, but that was nothing new. "We know. Just because you and Aftran…" She rubbed her hand over Abi's eyes. "You wouldn't make us do this."

"Everyone but Cassie, morph," I said. "She'll… um. Pair us off. Then she morphs, and we go."

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" Mechanic said. "I can call the Social Regulation and Peacekeeping Guild."

"No. You don't want this kind of trouble," Aftran said, making Cassie's eyes hard. "It's Howler trouble."

"Wow. And you think turning into me will help?" Mechanic said. "Good luck."

_Well_, Merl said. _That's as good a cue to start morphing as any._ And she thought about Mechanic's eyes, and the sideways way he blinked, and the changes began.

The tails came first, bursting out of the top of my butt like something out of _Alien_. My arms and legs shortened and thickened until I fell onto all fours, no longer able to stand. Mechanic was saying, "Oh, wow, that's actually kind of disturbing," which, no kidding, because there was nothing but two long tendrils where Marco's face used to be. Even with all the grossness, we were drawing a crowd again, and I started to worry if the Howlers might notice what was going on. We needed to get on with it.

My skin melted and ran together into a thick red carapace on my upper side, while long bristles grew out of my chest and stomach. A strange new sense came from them: a sensitivity to the currents in the air and what they carried. In front of me, Marco was about a foot long and covered in slime. He was going to be in my brain soon. I might have thrown up if I still had a mouth. _You can do this, Jake,_ Merl said, nuzzling my shell, then she disappeared.

Thump. Thump. Extra legs grew out and hit the floor, which helped keep me stable when the pincers came. They were powerful and heavy. My eyes migrated to the back of my head and shifted into a new kind of vision, which disoriented me until I realized it was mostly heat signatures, with a blocky grayscale map of the world overlaid on them. A third eye opened up on the front of my face, and two earholes opened underneath it. My hearing was a little duller than normal, and seemed to pick up on a lower range of sounds.

My body was complete. I braced myself for the instincts, but very few came. Mostly I felt a sort of itching in my bristles and a need to move. When I lurched forward clumsily on my eight legs, the air moved across my bristles. I felt tiny particles in the air get caught in the bristles, far too small for my human skin to detect, and a bit of the edge was dulled off the itch. _They're like baleen,_ Merl thought. _They filter the air to get food._

"Whoa, easy there!" Cassie said, signaling with her hand for me to stop. She looked like a shifting flame with a dark ghost body wrapped around it. Beautiful, in a strange way. "You almost stepped on Marco."

I looked down with my front eye. I could just make out a tiny dark shape on the floor next to my foot. «Oh,» I said.

"You'll get the hang of it," Mechanic said. "I'm actually quite graceful. And, huh, it is strange hearing you thought-speak. I sure can't."

From the back of my head, I could see Rachel stop moving, probably worried about stomping Tobias.

«With your permission, Prince Jake,» said Ax from a source I couldn't identify, «I will ride in these rough hairs on the underside of your body. My flea form will cling to them easily.»

«Go right ahead.» I was going to be just chock-full of friends morphed as parasites today.

«Can we get a move on with this?» Marco said nervously. «My slime is drying out and it feels really freakin' gross.»

Cassie bent down and picked him up. She looked over her shoulder at Mechanic. "Where does he go?"

"Earhole," Mechanic said. "My left is a little bigger than my right, so I find it more comfortable."

Cassie walked up to me. She pressed the palm of her free hand to my carapace. "I trust the Iskoort, Jake," she said. "Believe me when I say that Marco won't be able to violate your mind even if he wanted to."

After meeting Mechanic, I was starting to believe it. But I couldn't, not completely, not when I still had nightmares about Temrash gloating while Merl clawed against the wall of her cage, burning with the pain of separation. «Just do it,» I said, a little harshly, and I was glad that I couldn't see the details of her face. She pressed her other hand against my earhole, and something thick and wet wriggled in, painfully stretching my ear canal. Marco.

I steeled myself, trying to make my brain like a brick wall. No trespassers. But my brain still felt like just my brain. _Look,_ said Merl, trying to distract me. _There's Cassie putting Tobias in Rachel's earhole. _She flinched with her whole body, then went still. Cassie closed her eyes, and a third eye opened in between them. It was really cool, actually.

«Jake?» said Marco, his voice strangely small. «Are you okay?»

I blinked. I stomped my feet. I still could.

«I think so,» I said.

A pause. «This is going to sound really pathetic.»

«What?»

«It's… dark in here.»

For a second, I burned with anger. He was the one inside _my_ brain. He had no right to complain. Then he said, «Seriously, though. I can't see or hear anything. I can, like, feel the shape of your brain. Or Mechanic's brain. Whatever. I know where all the parts are and can kind of feel what they're supposed to do. But that's all I've got. I don't even have Dia, right? It's almost like I don't have a body at all.»

I relaxed. It wasn't like with Temrash. Marco couldn't, or wouldn't, break into anything that was mine. But then I felt guilty. That really must be freaky, to be a slug in the darkness of an alien skull. I'd been so wrapped up in my own fears that I hadn't thought what this would be like for Marco.

«You can use my eyes,» I said. «And my ears. And my thought-speech.» Then I almost regretted it. Would we be able to share? I guessed I could just override Marco if I had to, but hopefully it would work out okay.

It was like Mechanic said. I felt this weird pressure behind my eyes, in my earholes, and in the part of my brain that heard and spoke in thought-speech. I instinctively pushed back, but Merl pulled back my defenses. The pressure disappeared. «Whoa,» Marco said. «It's like night vision goggles, but not. And wow, the heat-sensing looks weird on Cassie when she's morphing.»

_Kind of wish we had Tobias looking out for us_, I said.

«They'd just shoot him down,» Marco said.

_I know. But still. He wouldn't miss a thing._

«At least nothing can sneak up on us. Look, there's Rachel and Tobias lurching around behind us,» Marco said. There was a strange feeling as Marco sort of leaned on the thought-speech part of my brain. «Testing, testing, one, two, three. Can everyone hear me?»

«Is that you, Marco?» Cassie said.

«Yup. Oh, wow, I do sound like him, don't I? All gruff and leader-like. Let's get this mission _started,_ folks.»

«I don't say that!» I protested.

«It is so weird to hear you arguing with yourself,» said Rachel, or maybe Tobias. «It's like you've finally given in and gone nuts.» Definitely Rachel.

«Are you well, Prince Jake? Do you have full control of your faculties?»

«Yes, Ax, I'm fine. Marco's just going for a ride in my skull. No freaky mind control, just vision, hearing, and thought-speech.»

«Good,» said Ax.

«What about you, Rachel?» Cassie said.

«Tobias refuses to use my brain at all,» Rachel grumbled. «I'm trying to wear him down.»

«Argue while we walk,» I said. «Delia needs us.»

«Um,» said Rachel. «Which way are they? These senses are totally different from the eagle's.»

"Which way are you going?" Mechanic said.

«The scrapyard,» I said.

Mechanic pointed his pincers. "That way."

«Thank you so much, Assistant Airship Mechanic, Axahantl,» Cassie said.

"Good luck!" Mechanic rumbled, the grinding-bone sound resonating deeply in my earholes.

These bodies were faster than they looked, though obviously not nearly as fast as the Howlers. We weaved awkwardly through the hot welding tools and busy mechanics, then spread out once the repair area was through.

«Are we pretending to be real Iskoort?» Marco said. «The Howlers know them better than we do.»

_Aftran might be able to pull it off, since she's talked with those Yoort friends of hers. _Out loud, I said, «Aftran, do you think you can put on an Iskoort act for the Howlers?»

«I'll try,» Aftran said. «I have the best chance of any of us.»

«Okay,» I said. «We'll let you do the talking.» I hoped I wasn't wrong in trusting her. She'd come through every time so far.

The scrapyard looked different from the Iskoort perspective. Bigger, and slower going. My heat vision could pick up which scraps had been newly removed from a dead machine by a faint glow around the edges. It made some of the piles look vaguely alive. Maybe that was why Mechanic chose his job.

We saw the Howlers from a ways off. Their bodies burned bright with heat in the scrapyard. Then we heard them. "There's the last of the motor functions," one of them said.

"We remember it all," another said. "There have to be holographic emitters in there somewhere. How else did the poison-creatures become invisible? Think of what we could do with those! Such fun hunting games we could play."

"I have word from Gamma," one said. "The enemy was just on this level. We should move the robot soon, before they discover us."

"Do we have an alternate location prepared?"

"Beta has one."

Now we were close enough that I could see Delia, her head still spread open like one of the wrecks in the repair center. The dead Howler was still there, too, tossed aside like an old rag.

"Tell Gamma to find the enemy. They hide well enough, but they are weak. We should be able to pick them off one by one."

«What is happening?» Ax asked. «Have we found the Howlers?»

«Yeah,» I said. «We're about to go for Delia. Be ready to go.»

Aftran and Cassie were out ahead. "Excuse me, your honors!" Aftran called out in that bone-grinding language, and I thanked the Ellimist, at least a little, for helping us understand and be understood in this nuthouse. "Do you have records of transaction for this robot?"

The Howlers narrowed their eyes at us. One said, "We didn't buy it. It was just scrap."

"We have a Yoort complainant from the Mechanics Guild claiming this robot as their rightful property," Aftran said, clamping her pincers onto Delia's arm. "Unless you can provide proof of transaction, we're going to have to bring the robot to claims court right away. We in the Social Regulation and Peacekeeping Guild take violation of property rights very seriously."

The Howlers grabbed hold of Delia's other arm and leg. "We are not going to surrender the robot. It was unclaimed scrap. We have every right."

Rachel clamped onto the leg on Aftran's side. The two of them pulled, but the Howlers were stronger. "Let go," Aftran said. "Or we will force you."

«This is your cue,» she told me privately. «If they don't let her go, pincer those suckers. They can't do anything to stop you.»

I got into position, nearly stepping on the dead body along the way, and snapped my pincers menacingly at the Howlers. I was nervous, of course, because even after all I'd seen, it was still hard to believe they wouldn't kill us on the spot. But it also felt good to have them off-balance for once, especially seeing the state Delia was in.

"Go ahead," jeered the Howler holding Delia's other arm. "Force us."

I struck. I clamped my pincers hard on the Howler's knee joint. It shrieked, though not with its deadly howl, and reflexively loosened its grip on Delia's arm. That was all Rachel and Cassie needed. They pulled hard and got her loose from the other Howler's grasp. «Move, move, move!» Rachel shouted, and we all started hauling as hard as we could.

"We have contacts in the Warmaker Guild," a Howler snarled. "You're going to regret this. Bring that back."

«How are you doing on the weight?» I asked Rachel and Cassie. «Holding up?»

«She's _heavy_,» Rachel gasped. «We're going to have to switch off at some point.»

«Delia?» Aftran said. «Can you hear us? If you can, wriggle a little. But not too much.»

Delia didn't move.

«Maybe she can hear us but just can't move,» I said. «Listen, Delia. If you can hear us, make a hologram of some dirt smears on the floor in front of us.»

Suddenly the light surface of the yellow floor was darkened with dirt in front of us. «Okay, we're in business!» I said. «Delia, as soon as we get back into a crowd, get the holograms going, blend us in.»

«Jake!» Marco suddenly shouted in my head. «LOOK OUT!» I felt a sense of mental pressure on my muscles, and before I could panic and push back, Merl relaxed against it.

I realized a bunch of things at once. Through my back eyes, I saw a Howler sprinting toward us – which I had been too busy worrying about Delia to notice, but that Marco had. And Marco reared up on my – our? – hind legs, and struck with our pincers at just the right moment to grab the Howler's grasping hand by the wrist before it could grab onto Delia. The pincers clasped so hard I felt bones crunch between them. I took control of the pincers again and shook them back and forth like Homer trying to wrestle a toy from my hands. The bones ground against each other, and the Howler made a high keening sound, not painful like a howl but just as horrible.

Up ahead, Rachel and Cassie were putting as much distance as they could between them and the Howlers.

_Good catch, Marco_, I said weakly.

«Any time, man.»

«What is happening, Prince Jake?» Ax said urgently. «Do you need me?»

«Nah, I think I'm fine,» I said.

The Howler planted its feet firmly on the ground and pulled against my grip. Its hand slid free, though not without leaving half the flesh on its bones between my pincers. I opened them and let the bloody bits fall to the ground, feeling sick to my stomach – if this body even had a stomach.

The Howler and I stared at each other for a second. Something made me say, "Would you like us to send someone to dispose of your dead friend back there?"

"Friend?" it said.

«Something tells me the Howlers didn't consider that guy a friend,» Marco commented. «The whole corpse desecration thing is a dead giveaway.»

"One of your kind lies dead in this scrapyard. We can dispose of it, unless you want to handle it in your own way."

«Jake, what are you doing?» Rachel shouted. «We're way ahead of you and getting _really_ tired!»

"The dead thing?" the Howler said. "That's not a Howler. It was weak. It died. Howlers are not weak."

"Fine, then," I said harshly. "We'll burn it like trash." Then I ran to catch up with Rachel and Cassie.

The Howlers didn't follow. Maybe they were planning to go to claims court and sue to get Delia back. Let them. It would keep them busy while I tried to figure out how the hell we were going to kill them.

«All right,» I said, when I got level with them. «Rachel, you take a break, and I'll take over for you.»

I grabbed Delia's leg, pincers scraping against metal, and Rachel let go. She really was heavy. «Whew. That was tense. But I guess we did it. Looks like Delia is dead weight, though.»

«We're not safe yet,» Aftran said. «And Delia's not dead weight. She's our only hope of making a clean getaway. Come on, let's get to the repair center.»

I watched nervously through my back eyes. I saw embers moving toward us. «They're coming,» I said, and picked up the pace. My head pounded painfully with every step. I hoped we were close, but I had no idea anymore. Sounds, distant, getting louder. We turned a corner and there were the bright heat-flashes of melting metal and tools powering up.

A hologram came up around us. We were mechanics of a few different species carrying a large fuel barrel. «Are we safe?» Cassie said.

Holographic words appeared in front of us. YES. BUT I NEED A SAFE PLACE TO INITIATE SELF-REPAIR PROTOCOLS.

«We need Guide,» I said. «Aftran, do you know how to find him? Will he come?»

«With this kind of money on the line? Definitely. Get me inside a Yoort pool and I'll get Ebixuln right away.»

«And then we can demorph,» Marco said, sounding relieved.

The strain in his voice made me miss him intensely, even though he hadn't been in morph for long. In my head, I had no way of seeing the expressions he or Diamanta made. I couldn't check on him, and he couldn't check on me. What was it like to be in the sidelines of my body while I fought the Howlers, not knowing what would happen? Not like it was when he took over, probably. That didn't make me feel helpless. It made me feel like my friend was looking out for me, literally watching my back. It was scary, and I really wished we hadn't had to do it in the first place, but of all the people to be a backseat driver in my brain, Marco was definitely the one I'd pick, every time.

So I did something I wasn't sure would work. I relaxed a part of my brain, the part that felt thankful to Marco for saving us all from the inside of my own head. It must have worked, because Marco showed me something too: amazement that I'd let him take over my body, even for just a second – and thanks.

_You're welcome,_ I thought to him, as we gathered around a spigot of the Yoort pool system. _Let's never do that again._


	4. 4 The Histories of Others

"The histories of others may become your own, whether through the embrace of a host's mind or the entanglement of a well-told story." – quote from Third Janath, an ancient sage of the Sulp Niaar pool

* * *

><p>«I will not continue service to you without more payment,» Guide said. His wounded shoulder was in a molded white cast that restricted the movement of one of his arms.<p>

«Fair enough, dude,» Marco said, eyeing the cast. He was in gorilla morph to carry Delia around. «What do you want?»

«Can you spare any internal organs?» Guide said hopefully.

"What is with you and body parts?" Rachel said, crossing her arms. "Get it through your head: we're not chopping off anything else for you. We've all gotten enough punishment for one day."

I looked around at our sorry little group. "Do we have anything else to sell, besides our memories?"

"Delia has something," I heard Cassie say, but knew it was Aftran, because Cassie wouldn't try to speak on the Chee's behalf. "What did the Howlers want from her so badly? The holographic emitters, right? You've seen what they can do, Guide of Ebixuln."

Guide's eyes bulged. «You offer the robot's holographic emitters?»

Words flashed in front of Delia, this time in the Iskoort dot-writing instead of English. A SCHEMATIC OF MY EMITTERS, SO YOU CAN BUILD THEM YOURSELF, IF YOU INSIST. I'M NOT GIVING MINE UP.

«Deal!» Guide cried.

"But that's all you're getting, Guide," I said. "From now on, we're fair and square. We can ask for whatever we want, and you get it for us. Got it?"

«Anything,» Guide said fervently.

"Good. Now, we're hungry and beat. Where can we rest?"

«Come with me.»

The place he took us to was bright white with patterns of primary colors and high ceilings. It was pretty typical of the city's look. A bunch of fawning Servant Iskoort escorted us to a big room with soft dips in the floor lined with something fluffy like feathers. I would have curled up in one and dropped off immediately if I weren't so hungry. Cassie talked to the Servant Iskoort and tried to explain what kinds of foods humans, Andalites, and hawks eat. My hopes for dinner were not high, but I'd eat anything that wouldn't poison me.

Marco set Delia down on the floor and demorphed. When Cassie was done talking proteins and carbohydrates with the Servant Iskoort, Aftran said, "How are the repairs going, Delia?"

PRIORITIZING MOTOR FUNCTION. I NEED TO ABLE TO ESCAPE THE HOWLERS. SPEECH IS NON-ESSENTIAL.

«When will you be able to transfer the schematics?» Guide said.

AS SOON AS I'M ABLE TO MOVE MY ARMS. BUT LEGS COME FIRST.

I sat cross-legged on the floor. Merl became a deer and lay on the floor behind me. I leaned back against her. "Hey, Delia," I said. "Sorry to bother you. But can you tell us about what you saw in the Howlers' memories?"

I SAW THEM KILL A DOZEN SPECIES. THEY THOUGHT OF IT LIKE A GAME, LIKE CHILDREN STOMPING ON INSECTS. THEY NEVER LOST.

"Never? You don't have a single memory of a Howler dying or being defeated?"

NO.

"Well, duh," Marco said, twining Diamanta's little green snake form around his fingers. "They're badasses. We can turn into Earth's baddest animals and heal any injury and they have us beat. The only reason we're even alive is because of the rules on the Ellimist's and Crayak's cosmic checkers game. What's a species without the morphing power going to do?"

"But we did kill one," Merlyse murmured.

_Children? They sure didn't act like children around death, all innocent and scared. _Merlyse put in the image of Marco howling his grief into Jake's pillows. _The Howlers didn't even think of it as one of them anymore. Like they'd forgotten it had ever fought beside them. Did they even absorb its memories when it died? How could they kill for fun if they could remember what it's like to die of poison? I can't forget the times I've almost died. I remember every time I bite through a Hork-Bajir's neck._

"Something's off," Merlyse said in my ear. "Something doesn't fit. If we can just work it out…"

Just then, the servant Iskoort came back in, carrying plates full of… something. One had a bowl full of reddish liquid and set it front of Ax, bowing and scraping. He eyed it distastefully. Tobias got a fresh lump of gray meat, still oozing blackish fluid. The rest of us got bowls of something beige and goopy like porridge. After some nudging at my elbow from Merlyse, I tried a spoonful. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I'll put it this way: it was the weirdest thing I've ever tasted, but I've had worse at the school cafeteria. Merlyse and I curled up together in one of the dips. The feathers tickled my cheek, but they were very soft. I expected to sleep right away, but I found my mind drifting without quite going under.

Cassie had her head over the edge of one of the floor dips, her chin resting on her twined hands. Quincy was sitting on her head, wings spread out like a bizarre tiara. "Ebixuln," she said, looking at Guide. "Can you tell us about the history of your people?"

Guide spoke – or, no, Ebixuln. «We don't like to talk about it. We have much to be ashamed of.»

«So do we all, Ebixuln,» Tobias said. «Has any species always been great?»

Ax turned his stalk eyes away from Tobias. Cassie shook her head. Ebixuln said, «You're right. Yes. So I might as well tell you. We weren't like we are now, in those days. The Yoort assumed complete control of their hosts. Whatever they wanted, their hosts' minds couldn't resist. Not all Yoort abused this power, but I'm sorry to say that many did.»

«That's what our enemy does,» Tobias said. «The Yeerks. They try to enslave our people.»

«My people as well. The Iskamel,» Guide said. «It's from our name that the word Isk comes. Because we were the Isk to the Yoort. Except when we were their slaves. Or free of them entirely. But then, when the Iskamel reached a certain level of technological advancement, the Yoort couldn't enslave us anymore. We made armor to protect us when we swam in their pools for food. We invented devices to scan each other for Yoort infestation. Some Iskamel tried to destroy the Yoort people altogether. But some had formed true partnerships with Yoort, or knew people who did, and didn't want to lose their friends. Many great wars were fought for the future of the Yoort.»

«I won't say any more about that time. It would upset your rest. But the unrest finally slowed when a team of Iskoort scientists and policymakers, the Circle of Friends, found a solution: a kind of gene therapy that would change the very nature of the Yoort. It would make them unable to overpower an Isk's mind, only to share it. All it took was a series of injections, and the Yoort DNA would be permanently altered this way. The Circle of Friends would only give the treatment to those Yoort who asked for it. Of course, the formulas were stolen by less savory people who gave the treatment by force. But most histories agree that the majority of Yoort who got the treatment volunteered. Some were never treated. But they became outcasts from society. No Isk would partner with them, and no treated Yoort would mate with them. To the best of my knowledge, none of that sort of Yoort exist anymore, though of course the News, Gossip, and Speculation Guild will spread rumors to the contrary.»

"When did other species start coming to your planet?" Cassie/Aftran asked, eyes wide.

«We made first contact during the wars,» Guide/Ebixuln said, «so hardly anyone wanted to visit us then. We were hardly the trading destination we are now! But a few powers kept embassies on our world. It was alien technology that sparked the Circle of Friends' research into a treatment. But it was after the wars, after peace came to Iskamel and Yoort, when we began to build our great cities, that trade truly began with other worlds. And then some species that traded with us found that they enjoyed the partnership of Yoort as well. So the Iskoort came to be.»

"That's what might have happened on my world," Aftran murmured. "If the Gedd had had time to advance themselves. If the Andalites hadn't come to show us the stars, only to guard us against ever reaching them."

Ax narrowed his main eyes at Aftran. «You were no friends to the Gedd. You enslaved them.»

"We did," Aftran said. She didn't look at him, or at least not through Cassie's eyes, but Quincy had his beady eyes trained on him. "But that's not all we did. It isn't that simple. Some Yeerk pools formed deep ties to Gedd communities. In the northern wastes, some Gedd tribes relied on Yeerks to help them find pools where they could forage and the Yeerks could breed. In some tribes, being a host was a great honor. Both subjugation and cooperation were possibilities for my people, just as they are possibilities for yours, Andalite. Though you seem to prefer subjugation, on the whole."

«And humans,» Tobias said. «We can enslave people too. Not like the Yeerks do, but it's still slavery, and it's never right, no matter how you do it.»

"Ebixuln, I hope you won't think any less of me for this, but my people…" Aftran bit her lip, and used that trick again of looking at the Iskoort through Quincy's eyes. "We're like yours was, back in the old days. Barbarians. I can enslave people's minds. If I want. I don't want. But I'd like to get those injections. So I won't ever be tempted."

Ebixuln whined. «I doubt you could find them outside a museum. No one needs them anymore.»

"We'll see about that," Aftran said. And she got up and pressed Cassie's ear against a spigot in the Yeerk pool system.

Cassie sighed and curled back up in her fuzzy scoop. Quincy watched me, warmth filling his tiny black eyes. "Get some sleep," he said.

"I wouldn't have missed that," Merlyse murmured. "It was… educational."

"I'll say," Abineng said. Had everyone heard that conversation?

"Yeah," Diamanta said, "but Quincy's right. Gotta get our strength up if we want to kick those Howlers' butts."

We all knew it was false bravado, but it finally got Merl to curl a little tighter around me, and rest her head on my shoulder, a warm reassuring weight. I slept, and hoped my dreams could piece together what my waking mind could just barely glimpse.

I woke to the faint sound of hissing. Not like the sound Diamanta makes when she's mad, but more like a busted tire or balloon leaking air. It wasn't the sound itself that bothered so much as the change. I could sleep right through the gentle breathing in the room, which had surrounded me all night. But this hissing sound was new, and if it was faint to my ears, then no one else could hear it at all.

«Jake,» I said. «Wake up. Listen. Do you hear something? A hissing sound?»

Jake's eyes startled open. Only Merlyse's head on his side kept him from jumping. Merl said softly, "No. But I smell something." She turned into a bloodhound, then wrinkled her snout. "Smells bad."

Ax turned a stalk eye each toward Jake and me. He's a light sleeper, like me. Guide of Ebixuln stirred in their sleep.

"A hissing sound…" Jake murmured. Then he scrambled to his feet and shouted, "Gas! Everyone, wake up! It's gas!"

«But they can't do that,» I said. «Guide's in here.»

While Rachel yawned and stretched, Abineng said drowsily, "Hey, I know that smell. That's bug poison."

Marco blinked hard to clear the sleep from his eyes. "They saw us bail as flies last time. They're onto us."

"Guide," Jake said tightly. "Windows?"

«Yes. I can open them by – »

"Not yet," Jake said. "Cassie. Is Aftran with you?"

"No, I'm here," said a tinny synthesized voice from the Yoort pool.

"All right," said Jake. "We split up. Marco and Tobias, you morph Yoort and join Aftran in the pool. Swim out of here. Cassie, Rachel, we go bird." He was already sprouting feathers from his cheeks. "Delia, can you move?"

My stomach churned at the thought of becoming a Yoort again, but Jake's plan made sense. If we split up, even if the Howlers caught one group, at least some of us would get out alive. He wasn't saying that, but I knew it was what he meant. I focused on the slimy body of the Yoort and began to shrink.

YES, Delia flashed at us. WELL, MY LEGS, IN ANY CASE. I PRIORITIZED THEIR REPAIR.

"When we fly out of here, can you project a hologram of us flying out the other way?"

YES.

There was a brief pause as Jake's mouth ran together into a beak and Merlyse blinked out of view. «Okay. Hide as best you can and stay with Guide. We're going to need those memory headset thingies.»

The slime filled my eyes until there was nothing but darkness. My beak split and softened into the Yoort's long palps. I heard Marco say, «I can't believe we're turning into Yoorts again. Are we sure all the slime comes off when we demorph? I have sensitive skin.»

_Now that was a gross thought, _El grumbled. _The slime would ruin our feathers. Thanks, Marco._

«All right, Guide. We're almost ready to fly. Open a window on the far side of the room, then one right here. Put Marco and Tobias in the Yoort pool. Then haul your butt and get the memory gear.»

I could feel the bug poison on my skin. It prickled unpleasantly. That was on top of the awful drying of my slime and the pressure inside me crying for breath. I hoped Guide would get me in the Yoort pool soon. _And there was a sentence I'd never thought you'd think,_ El added.

I couldn't hear anything. It was horrible sensory deprivation compared to my hawk body. I desperately wanted to know if my friends had managed to escape. «Guide?» I said. «Are they clear?»

«The Howlers are firing the wrong way. Oh, I hate those shooting sounds! Unpleasant to the eardrum and bad for business besides. Poor Servant Iskoort. But here. You need to get in the Yoort pool.»

I felt a tentacle-finger wrap around me. Instinctively, I struggled, then forced down the urge. I felt like I was trapped by a squid deep down in the ocean, slowly suffocating in its grip. Then, a fall, and _relief._

That's all I can call it. Senses I couldn't even name signalled comfort, safety, relaxation, bliss. El sighed in my head with the sheer pleasure of it.

«Whoooaaaa,» said Marco. «OK. This is way nicer than a tube of sludge has any right to be. So, how do we find Aftran?»

I heard a series of ultrasonic squeaks, like a bat's or a dolphin's, combined with these pulses that it took me a minute to realize were probably electric. It was about the eighth or ninth weirdest thing that had happened to me in a couple of days that I was somehow able to understand these squeaks and pulses as language. "So strange," the not-voice said. "They really do look just like…" It trailed off into more bursts of sound and pulses of electricity that meant nothing to me.

Another not-voice. "Come _on_. I'm right here. Use your echolocation." Definitely Aftran.

I remembered being a dolphin, how its mind could decipher the weird echoes from its squeaks. For the second time that day, I would have to let Yoort instincts take over. _Well, it can't be as bad as last time, _El said, and let the Yoort take the driver's seat.

It let out a sonic blast, and I got ephemeral sketchy images like something from a horror movie: two heads, if that's what they were, with long puckered tentacles waving in the current. Marco and I screamed.

«Jesus H. Christ, I could have gone my whole life without seeing a Yeerk's face up close and personal!» Marco yelled.

"Please don't take offense, my friend," Aftran said patiently. She touched her awful pimply tentacles to the longer ones of the Yoort beside her. It was – friendlier, in a weird slug way, than I would have expected of her.

"Oh, none at all," said the other monster-face – Zhakdud. "From what you've shown me of Yeerks, they have every reason to be afraid. Please, everyone follow me. We need to get clear before the Howlers think to check the Yoort pool."

We followed. Zhakdud led us through twists and turns, until we went through a portal to a kind of water main with a faster current. Along the way, we passed dozens of Yoort, all gossiping to each other about all those frightening bullets flying around the Servant Guild hostel, and when would the Civil Order and Peacekeeping Guild get here to put a stop to it?

Zhakdud was talkative too, or at least compared to Aftran, or Temrash, the Yeerk that had infested Jake. "You know, speaking of Yeerks, I find your friend's background fascinating. There's a legend as old as my people that the Yoort were brough to this planet by slaers who kidnapped us from our home and meant to use us to know the minds of their foes. But we were cunning and escaped, and our slavers got lost in the swamps and perished. I don't know if that's true, but genetic analysis has conclusively shown that the Yoort are distinct from anything else on this world, and likely evolved separately. That's why I talked your friend into giving a tissue sample, so we can find out if the Yoort are descended from her people.»

I wasn't sure what to say. What did all of this mean? Maybe it wasn't my job to know. I know there was a reason why the Ellimist wanted Aftran to come. I also wasn't sure how I felt about Zhakdud calling Aftran our friend. Our ally, maybe.

"I wonder what it's like to become a Yoort if you've never been one before," Zhakdud mused as he opened the portal to the water main.

«Disgusting and freaky,» Marco said. «I kept wondering if it was like how the Yeerks feel when they infest innocent kids on our planet.»

That shut Zhakdud right up. It was harsh, sure, but I'd have a hard time cozying up to Yeerks who claimed to be good if, say, Loren was a Controller. Now there was a new and disturbing thought. It haunted me all the way through our wild ride down the fast-flowing mains of the Yoort pool. I had been as easy on Loren as I could when I had to infest her to prove her loyalty, but a real Yeerk wouldn't be. There was something fierce deep down inside Loren – I had seen that at the Hork-Bajir training facility – but she was still a gentle soul. If she were infested for real, would anything of her be left afterward? I suddenly felt new sympathy for Marco. I'd never had a mother to worry about until now. He must think about her all the time, wondering what she might be going through.

_They won't take Loren,_ El said. _As far as anyone knows, she's blind. They think she's worthless._

_But what if they find out she's my mom? There must be a file on my birth at the hospital, right? Do the Yeerks have people with access to hospital records?_

_It's pointless worrying about it now, _El said. _Let's focus on following Zhakdud._

He led us out of the main into a narrower, slower pipe. "We're near a memory palace," he said. "I don't know if it's the right one, but we should be well away from the Howlers. Let's call your Iskoort friend."

«Call Guide?» Marco asked me privately. «What's he going to do, pick up a pay phone?»

Zhakdud stopped by a strange spot on the wall. There was a dark square that absorbed all my squeaks, surrounded by a reflective border. The Yoort talked to it. "Connect me to…" The next burst-pulse I can't transcribe. It was Ebixuln's name in Yoort talk, probably, and even the Ellimist's work couldn't make a Yoort name translate to anything in my head. "…of the Trader Guild, whose Isk is Guide."

There was a pause, then the square spoke in the Yoort talk. Unintelligible burst-pulse that was Zhakdud's true name. Then: "Is that you?"

"Yes. With…" Static. Aftran? "And the two shapechangers. Where are you?"

"In an abandoned store in the old Level 50 live-organism market. The robot thought it was prudent to take the memory-gear somewhere inconspicuous."

«Good thinking, Delia,» Marco said approvingly.

"What about the other shapechangers?" Zhakdud said.

"I don't know. Last I saw them, they fled toward the Level 48 bazaar amid heavy fire."

I felt cold then, even in the warmth of the Yoort pool.

Aftran said, "I guess there's nothing to do but wait for their call, then. We'll meet you where you are."

Ebixuln ratled off an address to Zhakdud, and we continued on our way. This leg of the trip was even more grimly silent than the last. El refused to let me wonder what Marco and I would do if everyone else was dead.

Then we passed by a square that spoke to us. "Incoming ping for…" Static. "…of the Engineering Guild from approved caller. Would you like to accept?"

We all stopped and gathered around the square. "Accepted," Zhakdud said.

Now I was starting to recognize the patterns of Zhakdud's name. "Zhakdud, it's me." Static again. "The shapechanger." A burst-pulse that I recognized as Aftran's name. "Her friend." Cassie! Relief flooded me like ice water. I felt more alert, more ready. "Is she with you?"

El said, _But what about the others?_

"Yes. Your two other shapechangers, too. Are you out of danger?"

"Yes, all of us, though Jake had a close call. Can Marco and Tobias hear me say that?"

«Yes!» we both cried.

"The terminal can't pick up on thought-speech," Zhakdud told us. "Yes, they can hear you. Listen, shapechanger. We are on our way to meet Guide of Ebixuln and the robot. They are in…" He recited the address.

"Huh?" Cassie said. It was weird to hear her voice translated like this.

An electric pulse from Zhakdud that I could have sworn was a sigh. "Go to Level 50, to the market where they sell live organisms. You'll blend right in if you change your shape. There's a market that sells floating plants – ballooned plants with tether-vines – you can't miss it. Past that market is an abandoned store, very small. Guide of Ebixuln and the robot are there with the memory gear."

"Thank you, Zhakdud," Cassie said. "We'll see you there."

I had a lot more pep in my swim as I followed Zhakdud to the abandoned store. It wasn't much farther. When we got to the Yoort pool in there, the most bizarre thing happened: the walls sent us echoes of the store, as if it were inside the Yoort pool and we could ping it with our echolocation. I could sort of see Guide and Delia. Marco and I wriggled for the spigot that would set us loose so we could demorph.

"Aren't you going to thank Zhakdud for their help?" Aftran said sourly.

_Ouch,_ said El. _She's right. That was rude._

"Sorry," I stuttered, "it's just that I'm worried about my friends, and I… I'm sorry. Thanks for helping. Seriously. I really don't know how to be a, uh, a Yoort, and we kind of needed to be Yoort right then, so…"

"I hope you'll remember that," Zhakdud said, touching their palps to mine and Marco's. It added a flood of emotion, and strange flickering sonar-memories, to what they said. "When you go back to your planet. That Aftran and I are people too. Aftran and her people have been led astray. But she, at least, is trying to come back."

Marco and I disentangled ourselves from Zhakdud, and I'm sure he felt as unsettled as I did. We left the Yoort pool and fell what felt like five storeys to the ground. I was stunned for a moment, then started demorphing. «What do you think?» I asked Marco. «Have we been too hard on them?»

«On the Yoort, maybe,» he said. «So they did some bad stuff a long time ago. Whatever. They're pretty OK now, I guess. But Aftran, well, I believe that she's not going to betray us, and that maybe our goals are in sync, at least for now. But she enslaved a little girl, and helped other Yeerks do the same thing. I'm not about to forget that.»

As I demorphed, Guide and Delia came into view. Delia stood like a statue in the middle of the room while Guide sorted through what must be the memory-gear, one stalk eye watching us. The inside of this store really was empty except for the Yoort pool and some colorful lanterns in the ceiling.

WELCOME BACK, Delia flashed with her hologram in Iskoort dot-writing. ANY NEWS OF THE OTHERS?

«Yeah,» I said. «They made it out. They're on their way.»

Guide whined. «Good. Delia has given me her transmitter schematics, as well as her memories, but I still need the rest of my payment. Are you ready for the memory transfer?»

Marco and I exchanged a look. "Um," Marco said. "What does this involve?"

Guide held up something that looked like a crown made out of stray medical equipment. «I will need to adjust them for your head size and shape. They will sit on your head and induce a trance. During the trance, your memories are recorded.»

"We'll take turns," Marco said. "Tobias, will you watch our backs?"

«I always do,» I said. I watched Guide put the memory reader on Marco's head, then expand it so it fit like some weird tiara. «You still there, Aftran, Zhakdud?» I said to the Yoort pool.

«Yes,» said a voice from the pool.

«Good,» I said. «I have a feeling Jake will want to talk to you when he gets here.»

Marco's and Diamanta's eyes were closed, Diamanta hanging limply in snake form from Marco's wrist like a piece of rope. I watched the door nervously. What if the Howlers came? We couldn't let them take Delia again.

It seemed like a long time before Marco's eyes fluttered open again, and Diamanta arranged herself properly on his arm. "Huh," he said.

«What was it like?» I said.

Marco shrugged. "Like zoning out in class. Everything goes kind of fuzzy."

«Like the acquiring trance.»

"I wouldn't know. David acquired me when I was unconscious." His face and vocie were flat. He stroked Diamanta absently.

«Creep,» I said, because it was the only thing to say.

Guide took the headset off Marco, shrank it down, and put in on my head. It really was like an acquiring trance. I felt kind of vague and stared at an old stain on the wall. The door opened and some people came in. My friends. Huh. That was nice. I let their loud talk wash over me.

When the headset came off, I could finally tune into the conversation. "…almost fell off the side of the tower. Jake and the Howler would've both splattered. Maybe the Iskoort will finally put up guardrails now," Rachel said. "Oh, hey, Tobias. How was your memory reading?"

I looked at her, a little stunned. I was still waiting for the moment when she admitted how powerless and disgusted she felt about me being in her head. After what I'd seen in there, how could she not feel violated? But it still hadn't come. I hoped I'd have the chance to tell her I didn't think any less of her for what I'd seen. «It was fine. Just kinda sleepy. You wanna go next?»

"I'm already sleepy. The Howlers interrupted my beauty sleep," Rachel grumbled. "So it won't make much difference." She sat down cross-legged next to me, Abineng looming over me, and squirmed a little as Guide adjusted the weird crown for her head.

"So, Jake," Marco said. "Do you have a plan?"

Jake rubbed the back of Merlyse's long goose neck. "I think so, yeah." He looked at the Yoort Pool. "Aftran, are your friends there?"

«Zhakdud is here,» Aftran said. «They guided us.»

"Are they willing to help us one more time?" Jake said. "They shouldn't be in any danger."

«I will help,» said a different voice from the Yoort pool. «I can't speak for Yehyulu and Ushmyerg, but I can patch them into this conversation.»

"Do it," said Jake.

I looked at Rachel. Her eyes were half-closed. Abineng's head slumped forward. A lifetime of her memories, flowing into that crown on her head.

«Hello, shapechangers,» a new voice said. One of the other Yoort we'd acquired. «I'm listening.»

"Thank you," Jake said. "Listen. We need to get the Howlers to walk into a trap, and the best way to do that is to use Delia – Aftran's robot friend – as bait. They want her bad. But Delia's not really in any state to run them a good chase. So the next best thing is to get some Iskoort to pose as civil court officials who want to return the Howlers' 'property' to them. We posed as Iskoort once before, but we all need to be at the trap, ready to spring, and anyway, you three would probably do a better job convincing the Howlers you're for real."

«Will it be safe?» a Yoort asked. I couldn't really tell them apart.

"Guide?" Jake said.

«Yes. As long as you are paired with an Isk, the Howlers will not harm you.»

A moment of silence. Finally a Yoort said, «We will do this thing you ask. I believe these Howlers have brought only ill to our city, and to our new friend Aftran. But Yehyulu and I will need to hire Isk. Only Zhakdud has a committed partner.»

"Guide will pay for them," Jake said.

«What should we tell the Howlers?» the Yoort said.

"Pretend you're from, uh, whatever guild is in charge of returning stolen property," Jake said. "Say that the Warmaker Guild pressed the Howlers' claim, and they can go get the robot back. We'll be in a warehouse owned by the guild – or that at least seems like it might be – with the trap ready to close on them."

«Sounds easy,» the Yoort said.

"Don't jinx it," Marco groaned.

«I know some warehouses where this may be done,» Guide said. «I can pay any members of the Social Regulation and Peacekeeping Guild who see us to forget we're there.»

Rachel had the headset off. "Wow, Iskoort society sure sounds swell."

"Like our cops are much better," Marco returned.

"What about us?" Cassie said. "What do we do?"

"Hey, Guide," Jake said. "Do you just have memory recording equipment, or do you have stuff for playback too?"

«Of course I have an emitter,» Guide said.

"Good," Jake said. "We're going to give the Howlers an education."

«What memories are you going to play them?» I asked.

Merlyse's beady black eyes glittered. "Ours," he said.

A stunned silence fell. Cassie was the first to get it. "Oh," she said softly. "Delia said they don't have any memories of losing. But we do."

Jake said, "I stayed behind to talk to a Howler, when we were getting away with Delia. It didn't even see the dead one as a real Howler. It was beaten, so it had to be weak, and couldn't be one of them. But if they can remember what it's like to be beaten, to do everything you can and lose hope anyway, then they'll understand what they did to their fellow Howler."

AND WHAT THEY DID TO ALL THE SPECIES THEY SLAUGHTERED, Delia flashed.

"Then it won't seem like a game anymore," Rachel said.

"No more perfect soldiers," Jake concluded.

I said, «Crayak will kill them, won't he?»

Everyone turned and looked at me. But I could see from the stillness of Jake's hand on Merlyse's neck that he knew from the moment he made this plan. "Yeah," said Jake. "He made them to be his soldiers. If they won't do that, then he has no use for them."

"That's bullshit," Rachel snarled. "It is so unfair to make an entire species just to be your tool."

THAT IS TRUE, Delia flashed, and I was probably not the only one to feel a little uncomfortable. The Chee had been made for a completely different reason, but they still were tools, weren't they? I NEVER THOUGHT I MIGHT PITY THE HOWLERS, BUT NOW I THINK IT POSSIBLE.

"It's not your fault, Jake," Cassie said softly. "It's Crayak's, for not valuing the Howlers as anything but soldiers. And maybe the Ellimist, too, for choosing us to fight them."

Merlyse extended her neck, and Quincy flew to land on it. Jake went on, back in business. "The rest of us just have to get the memory emitter on a Howler somehow. And it will take all of us to do it. Guide, is there any part of the body where the emitter has to go?"

«The head gets the best results,» Guide said. He held up a metal disc the size of a dollar coin.

"I'll do it," Marco said. "Gorilla hands can handle that best."

Jake nodded. "You can read my memories next, Guide. Then go find a warehouse and take us there."

As Guide set up the headset on Jake, Marco said, "Hey, if that thing read all my memories, does that mean Iskoort are gonna sit around watching all my most embarrassing moments while eating alien popcorn or whatever?"

"It'll be Wacko City's biggest comedy of the year," Rachel said.

I looked at Ax. He'd been silent this whole time. His legs and back were rigid. «What's up, Ax-man?» I said.

«I worried the Yeerks might lead you and Marco astray,» Ax said, aiming a stalk-eye at me. «But they did not.»

«The Yoort have been nothing but helpful since we got here,» I said. «Didn't you hear Guide's story last night? If Yoort and Yeerk were once one species, it was at least a couple of thousand years ago. Maybe more. And Aftran helps us, doesn't she?»

Ax was silent. Then he said, «When Guide told the story of his people, Aftran said that the Yeerks could have become peaceful, as the Yoort are now, if my people had not come to their planet.» He turned another stalk eye toward me, expectantly.

I thought about it. «I think that's true. But I also think it could have ended peacefully if the Andalites had just come differently. Or if the Yeerks in charge weren't such assholes. Or… well. All kinds of things could have been different. But yeah, Ax. I don't think Seerow was the only Andalite responsible for this war.»

Guide took the memory headset off Cassie and glanced nervously at Ax. «Um, excuse me, if you could just…»

«I am ready,» Ax said, and bent his forelegs so Guide could reach his head.

«I've found a suitable location,» said a voice from the Yoort pool. «Warehouse 49-Up-Azure. Guide, will you take the shapechangers there while I find suitable Isk for Yehyulu and Ushmyerg?» That's when I realized it must be Ebixuln, separated from Guide.

«I'm not safe without you!» Guide said.

I WILL HIDE ALL OF US WITH HOLOGRAMS AS WE GO TO THE WAREHOUSE, Delia flashed in dot-writing.

«Fine,» Guide said. «I will go. But hurry, Ebixuln.» He gathered up the rest of his memory gear while Delia wove holograms of Iskoort around us. Then he took the headset off Ax.

It was a tense trip to the warehouse. It was a terrible feeling, this constant fear that we could be attacked and killed at any time. As if we weren't paranoid enough to begin with. I wondered where the Howlers were now. Tearing the city apart looking for us, probably. But they didn't find us. We kept to thick crowds, disguised in our holograms. I noticed things in the crowd I hadn't before: people stopping by spigots in the Yoort pool, to talk or to take up a Yoort. Sometimes I even saw two Iskoort press ears or mouths or other parts together, transferring Yoort from one to another.

We made it to the warehouse without any Howler attacks. It was mostly empty, with some crates marked EVIDENCE in Iskoort dot-writing. Guide immediately made for the warehouse's Yoort pool hook-up. «Ebixuln? Aftran? Are you there?»

«Ebixuln's on their way,» said Aftran. «Yehyulu and Ushmyerg have Isk now. Ebixuln told the gossip guild people that they and Zhakdud have an important message for the Howlers about their property, so they figure they should be along soon.»

Merlyse, weasel-formed, scampered over to speak quietly to Guide, who didn't seem happy about what she had to say. Meanwhile, Jake said, "Okay, everyone. Battle morphs. We need to be ready."

I didn't have to morph, of course. I watched as Merlyse went over to speak to Delia next. Jake looked at me and said, "I might ask you to go out and scout to see where the Howlers are. Delia will cover you."

I wondered what Merlyse had said in private to Guide and Delia. All around me, I heard organs liquefying and bones crunching. Strange how those sounds were almost familiar now. Then there was another voice from the Yoort pool. «Guide! Come. The Howlers will be here soon.» Ebixuln, Guide's only protection against the Howlers. The Isk rushed to the spigot to be reunited with his Yoort.

«Now, Tobias,» Jake said, half-tiger now.

I flew outside, gained altitude as best I could with ceiling and pillars blocking all the good wind. When I finally had the height for it, spotting the Howlers didn't take long, with their lava skin and their blue, blue eyes. But what I saw wasn't good.

«They've captured the Iskoort!» I said to the others. «They're carrying them like they're prisoners. I think they smelled a rat.»

«No!» cried Aftran. It was the most emotion I'd ever heard from her.

«Jake?» said Cassie.

«This doesn't change anything,» Jake said tightly. «This is still our best chance. We go ahead with the plan.»

«I thought they couldn't do that to Iskoort!» Rachel said.

I wasn't sure if the Iskoort were in thought-speak range, but I had to try. One of them was an Iskamel, which I already knew could thought-speak. «Hey, it's Tobias, one of the shapechangers! What's going on?»

«Oh!» came a mental cry, faint but there. «The Yoort are not – they… said they'd poison the Yoort pool if they didn't… didn't get paid for this… save us! Stop – »

I was getting the picture. To my friends, I said, «They're not Iskoort. The Howlers threatened to dump poison in the Yoort pool if the Yoort didn't abandon the Isk.»

«What!» cried Guide. «Can they do this? They dare – »

«It's a bluff,» Marco said. «The Howlers think killing is fun. If they could poison the entire Yoort pool system, they would have done it by now.»

«That is correct,» said Ax, in thought-speech that excluded Guide. «The entire point of this fight between us and the Howlers is to settle the argument between Crayak and the Ellimist over whether the Howlers will be allowed to exterminate the Iskoort. It must be against the rules for the Howlers to begin the process now.»

«I can't blame the Yoort for what they did, though,» I said, including Guide. «They didn't know it was a bluff. They only knew that the Howlers are tough customers, and that they can hurt Isk if they're separated from Yoort.»

«I think they'll try to use the Isk as hostages,» Cassie said quietly.

There was a long pause after that. «If we don't stop the Howlers, all the Isk will die,» Ax said. «Certainly we should try to spare the Isk if we can, but we cannot allow fear for their lives to keep us from doing what must be done.»

«So we'll just let the Howlers kill them?» Cassie demanded.

«I told the Isk I hired that they would be in no danger,» Ebixuln fretted. «Maybe I should have hired Warmaker Iskoort instead. I'll have to give out hazard pay…»

«They're close!» I said. «They're starting to run! Everyone get ready!»

The first Howler broke down the door of the warehouse with barely a pause. As soon as it was in, Delia leaped in the doorway, holding Guide in front of her like a shield. Guide clung to her neck, terrified but not running away. The other Howlers stopped short. Delia was blocking the doorway, but they couldn't attack an Iskoort.

One of the other Howlers was holding a small furry creature speckled with bald patches. It held its hand over what must be the Isk's head, ready to crush it. "Put down the Iskoort," the Howler said in a gravelly voice, "or this creature dies."

_Does Delia have to put Guide down? _El wondered. _What are the limits of her programming?_

_Let's not find out,_ I thought. "TSEEEEERRR!" I cried, hoping to draw the Howlers' attention. I flew up as close to the ceiling as I could get.

In a fraction of a second I had five guns pointing at me. Gulp. But the one threatening the Isk still didn't look away from Delia and Guide. Behind Delia, I could hear the snarls and cries of combat inside the warehouse.

Laser fire. I felt heat singe my tailfeathers as I dodged through a cage of light. Five more precisely aimed blasts of searing light, and I couldn't get past them all. My left wing was gone. As I fell, I saw Delia flash with her holograms: DID YOU THINK THAT WOULD WORK? I KNOW YOU WOULD KILL THE CREATURE ANYWAY. I AM PROGRAMMED TO BE PACIFISTIC, NOT STUPID.

Then the Howlers disappeared. And then, the whole world disappeared.

That was when I saw him. Crayak. Jake had talked about dreaming him, but now I realized he'd talked down the nightmare, so we wouldn't know how much they'd frightened him. He was huge. So high I couldn't have flown to the top of him, where his single great red eye stared down at us from a body made of muscle and hard steel. El fluttered to Ax's back and dug in her talons. Somehow, Ax's upper body didn't shield us at all from Crayak's terrible gaze.

"We meet at last, face to face," Crayak said, in a voice so low I felt my head might split with the rumbling pain of it. I heard gasps, soft cries, teeth chattering in pure fear. Ax turned his stalk eyes to look at me, to keep at least half of his sight away from that terrible eye.

"What? Not so brave now, little Jake?" Crayak mocked. I felt a chill. Of course Crayak would hate Jake more than ever, now. "Look at you, all of you, cowering! Are you frightened?"

"Yeah, I am," I heard Jake say, in a thready whisper. "But we won."

There was laughter, then, as vast as the space-shaking rumble of Crayak's voice. The Ellimist's shape glowed in the darkness, an old man with a flowing white beard. As false as Crayak's form, of course, but designed to win our respect and sympathy, not our dread. "Humans," he said, as if introducing us. "Five humans, an Andalite, a Chee, and a Yeerk."

"It was a mistake allowing the Chee to escape from the doom of their Pemalite masters," Crayak said.

"The Iskoort will live," the Ellimist said.

The eye didn't even blink. The voice was expressionless. "The Iskoort will live." Then it looked down at us, and somehow I knew it was looking at Jake. "Sleep well, human," he sneered. "I'll still be there in your dreams. And someday, when the time is right, you will suffer for this."

Then we weren't with Crayak anymore. We were in that weird inside-out super-space where you could see everything and understand nothing. It felt comfortable next to where we'd been.

"You did well," the Ellimist said.

"Did well? Did well?" Marco demanded. "We kicked butt on the meanest gang in the galaxy, whupped Crayak the Big Nasty, saved the Iskoort, which I still don't get why that was so important, and that's it? 'Job well done,' and 'Oh, by the way, here's your insides to look at again as we zip through inside-out world'?"

"What would you like?" the Ellimist said.

"I don't know," said Marco. "How about a reward or something?"

"How about telling us what we accomplished, if anything?" Jake said.

"Yeah," Rachel agreed. "How about that?"

"Crayak was careful," the Ellimist said. "He censored your memories as best he could, to keep them from infecting the pool of memories all Howlers share. But there was one memory that got through."

Then the memory surrounded us. There was Loren and Jax on a plain sofa, her face still scarred and blind, singing the Benedictus. The aching sense of wonder that my mother really loved me was familiar. But there was Ax's perspective on the memory too, his gratitude that his human _taf ratheen_, who barely knew him, was trying to be his family when his parents couldn't. That was new.

The memory faded. There were tears on my hawk face. Impossible, of course. But this was the Ellimist's world. I was embarrassed that everybody saw that. But I was also proud. Let them see the goodness in Loren. Let them see what we had together.

The Ellimist said, "Within six months, Crayak will send a Howler force to annihilate a race called the Sharf Den. Instead of using their howl to slaughter the Sharf Den, the Howlers will try something different." The Ellimist smiled. "They will attempt to sing to them. Crayak will have lost his shock troops. And the Sharf Den will… well, no one knows the future for certain. Oh, however, you may be sure that Guide of Ebixuln is a very, very rich Iskoort. And that Zhakdud, Ushmyerg, and Yehyulu are seen by many Iskoort as heroes."

Suddenly, without any warning, we were back in Cassie's barn. Afternoon, by the slant of the light, just as it had been when we left. Loren was there. So was Toby.

"Why are you all staring like that?" Loren said, sounding genuinely frightened. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

«You didn't see us leave?» I asked, stunned.

«No,» said Toby, confused.

Loren clapped a hand to her mouth. "Oh, Mary and Joseph. He shifted time. As soon as you said yes… you've already been there and back, haven't you? How long were you gone?"

«Only a couple of days,» I said.

«So you won,» Toby said.

"Yeah," said Marco, a little shakily. "We won."

"Are you all right?" Loren said.

Jax walked toward Ax and inspected him, as if to check he was in one piece. "Were the Howlers terrible?" he asked softly.

«Yeah,» I said. «But they were also children. Crayak used children as weapons.»

"And that's different from the Ellimist how, exactly?" Loren said.

We all looked away from her. Except Cassie. Or – no. There was something hard and bright in her, something in the gleam of Quincy's bared fangs, that made it clearly Aftran. And to my great surprise, there were choked back tears behind her words. "We saved something beautiful today, human. Something worth our lives to preserve. None of you can understand. But I will not forget what I learned from the Iskoort. I only repaid them, in my own small way, what I owe."


End file.
